

































































































































■ 











, 










































, n, ,V' • 















... ANNOUNCEMENT ... 


WORKS OF L. A. MARTIN. 

HALLOWE’EN AND OTHER POEMS. 

Binding, Cloth, Gold Stamp, Price 75c 
Binding, Paper . .. “ 50c 

RANDOM FLASHES. 

Binding, Cloth, Gold Stamp, Price 75c 
Binding, Paper. “ 50c 

HUXTER PUCK AND OTHER POEMS (in press). 

Binding, Cloth, Gold Stamp, Price 75c 
Binding, Paper. “ 50c 

Sent Post-paid to any address on receipt of Price. 










% 







































♦ 





L. A. Martin. 























Random flashes 


A Collection of Assays and Speeches 


-BY- 

/ 

I^. A. MARTIN, 

Author of “ Hallowe'en and Other Poems.” 


Schaffen und Streben ist Gottes Gebot, 

Arbeit ist Leben, Nichtsthun der Tod. 

—Bennedy. 

WltX) 


Published by 

The Good Way Publishing House, 

CHILLICOTHE, MO. 

* 1894. * 







ACe 

• M37S 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1894, 
BY L. A. MARTIN, 


in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. 0. 












DEDICATION 


•• 

To My Good Frieqd, 

(fapt. TCiIlian) jncTlloratl?, 

of Cliillieothe, Mo. 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, 
witPj 

the kiqdest regards and compliments 
of 

The Author, 

e« 

Sic te Diva pot ms regat, 

Et serves animev dimidium rtuv. 

— Horace. 


v preface... 


The virulence of unreasonable criticism, assails no 
one more cruelly, than he who makes his first step into 
the arena of letters. “He has written a book” is a shib¬ 
boleth in the mouth of the derisive critic, and the force 
of this custom is so strong, that most young writers use 
their preface in making vain excuses for troubling the 
public with their various literary productions. Not pass¬ 
ing upon the wisdom of this custom, I only say, that in 
my own case, I owe no apology to any one for the publi¬ 
cation of this work. If it suit not the taste of critics, 
it is only a matter of personal likes and dislikes, and I 
have just as good a case before the Header as they. I 
would suggest however that the purpose of literary crit¬ 
icism should be to discover that which is best in the 
writings of our home authors, that they may receive due 
commendation and encouragement in their efforts to win 
laurels in the noble field of letters. In this spirit I 
cheerfully invite all honest criticism to what ever is writ¬ 
ten on the pages of this book. 

Most of the Articles contained in this work have been 
in print before in various newspapers and magazines. 
The one entitled “Education and Agriculture,” was 
read before the Missouri State Board of Agriculture at 
its meeting in Maryville, Mo., Oct. 20, 1890, and is 
published in the 23rd annual report of that body. The 



vi. 


PREFACE. 


Article entitled “The New Chivalry” is a school 
oration. It has no special merit or originality in 
conception, except the name. In that designation I 
claim exclusive authorship. The noble profession of 
Teaching has received many names of eulogy and praise, 
but I know of none that more truthfully as well as poet¬ 
ically describes it as “The New Chivalry. The Old 
Year, Christmas, and Memorial Day, were first writ-* 
ten as Editorials for the Newspapers, and were published 
at the time they were written. In 1885, while I was en¬ 
gaged in teaching in country schools in this county I 
conceived the idea of writing an Educational novel, 
somewhat in order of Pestalozzi’s Leonard and Ger¬ 
trude. After I had written about a half a dozen chap¬ 
ters, I left off. The plan of the work was to start two 
children to school, and picture their educational growth 
and development according to the methods I have sug¬ 
gested in this work. The dflficulty of keeping up an in¬ 
teresting romance, through the long and tedious reviews 
and repetitions that are characteristic of the work in our 
common schools was soon apparent. However the ma¬ 
terial I had collected for the work, and the ideas con¬ 
tained in those half dozen chapters were not lost. I 
made use of them in Educational addresses, and pub¬ 
lished them in Newspapers and School Journals, and at 
last condensed the whole into one Article which is here¬ 
in entitled: —“Witat Should be Taught Boyhood and 
Girlhood at School.” From this it was but a step, to 
follow up the destiny of my characters, who had just fin¬ 
ished their work in school, and this produced “The Man¬ 
ly Man and the Womanly Woman.” The next step in 
their history produced “Honored Age,” which with the 
exception of some changes and corrections was written 
in 1891, before I began the practice of Law. This work 


PREFACE. 


vii. 


therefore embodies my ideas on Education and teaching 
as gleaned from observation and experience, while en¬ 
gaged in that professsion. How it will fare at the hands 
of that profession I do not know. There are some ideas 
suggested that they may not endorse. However in the 
spirit of Chivalry I commend them to their considera¬ 
tion, as well as to the public generally, knowing that this 
“New Chivalry” will as generously regard, and as loudly 
declare the merits of a comrade, as did the admirers of 
the plumed and iron-vestured champions, who won the 
laurels of the “Old.” The Author. 








(foQi^rjts. 


An Old Year Reverie. 9 

A Christmas Reverie. 17 

Memorial Day. 23 

The New Chivalry. 33 

The Old Education and the New. 43 

Building. 55 

Education and Agriculture. 77 

Boyhood and Girlhood at School. 97 

The Manly Man and the Womanly Woman.133 

Honored Age... 159 













Ctn 01b IJear Ker>erte. 

Dawn, Mo., December 31, 1890. 


Ring^ut, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The flying cloud the frosty light; 

The year is dying in the night, 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

—Tennyson. 









4 











f 



f 


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- %•» 









THE> OLD YEAR. 


There is an awful and real sadness in the contem¬ 
plation of Time. Time—passing Time. Here for a 
moment, then gone forever. Upon this constant stream, 
there is no break, or division. No horologe can mark or 
put bounds to its constant and immutable flow. Yet 
man must rear his narrow bounds. He maps the stars, 
and rears above the pigmy platitudes of his own vision 
—a Universe. In like manner he places his measure¬ 
ments on Time’s limitless stream. Since his advent on 
its wave, he has placed mile-stones along the surface, and 
tonight we pass one forever. The ‘ ‘Old Year” will soon be 
gone. Looking out toward the blue sky with its star¬ 
light and moonlight blending throughout a seeming end¬ 
less immensity, there is a calmness and an assuring stead¬ 
fastness on the face of nature, which seem to declare 
safe sailing to other mile-stones, yet to come. Then why 
is there a sadness especially at this hour? Ah! Love is 
stirred. Affection clings, fonder than the tendrils of 
vine, to the fleeting traces of our past selves. Dead—- 
but in memories alive, Love ever mirrors to us the ever¬ 
lasting traces of our lost “might-have-beens,” and we 
know, as we know our existence, that the closing year is 
the vanishing ship that bears many of them away—for¬ 
ever. Love weeps to see them go. Ah! Love, why so 
foolish? Thou in ancient Mythology deified, and in 
Romance pictured as the “Sylph-like Spirit” with the 



12 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


silver bow, why do thy shafts pierce the heart on ac¬ 
count of vain hopes that can never be. Why hast thou 
not some stoic Philosophy, since all humanity worships 
at thy shrine. Since Thou art the guardian of home and 
civilization, why couldst thou not build thy kingdom 
without heart pangs and reminiscent tears. Thou, the 
spirit that stands by the cradle and tunes the mother’s 
lullaby,—that fires the lover s heart, crimsons the maid¬ 
en’s cheek and frets the tell-tale lines, as eyes fond, pas¬ 
sion-lit, acknowledge the spark that words can never tell. 
All that is beautiful, all that is true, all that harmonize 
with soul and heart, all that makes man noble, all that 
cause breasts to heave and hearts to glow, spring 
from thy mystic fountain. Thy gladdest festival is 
bridal day and nuptial eve. With a smile, thou kissest 
the cheek of youth, and with a tear, the lips of Death. 
On the heart-throb land of sympathy and passion, star¬ 
lit with rosy-wreathed smile, or scorched with withering 
tear, thou holdest thy tender but all-powerful sway. Here 
Thou buildest an airy palace of hope, the arches diamond 
set, chevroned and linteled with emerald and saphire. 
The topaz glisten. Within the lights burn and the fra¬ 
grant air floats through the marble halls. Without the 
vines hang their red clusters, the lawns are verdant and 
the song birds, vocal in sweetest melody. And for 
what is all this? A heart is stricken—One passion look 
—one blush—one answering eye-sparkle—dreams—hopes 
—futurity’s drawn curtain—a maiden and a lover—a 
bride and a bridegroom—a home and a fireside all pic¬ 
tured in glowing panorama--When, lo!—The Harpies’ 
wings are heard. The dream is their carrion, and in dis¬ 
appointment’s beak and claw the fairy hope is torn and 
lost forever, Yes, lost forever! And love looks weep¬ 
ing as the fading shadows go. Just as he looks tonight 


RANDOM FLASHES 


13 


on the last moments of the “Old Year,” for he knows 
how many such hopes during its time were built, and how 
many were phantasies. How many dead “might-have- 
beens” go down the current with it never to return. 
And our hearts go with them, “far away, sailing a Ves- 
suvian bay.” “Old Year” dying in the night.” What 
is that death? Who spreads the pall and folds the cere¬ 
ments ere the coffin close? At other deaths we see the 
palor, the crape, the pall, the procession and the open 
grave on the grass heath, where mother earth wombs in 
her bosom her returning children. The mound marks 
the place and some cenotaph gives the date. But where 
are the buried years? Where, through all the mighty 
Vast—from frosty Neptune to the North Star—from the 
Southern Cross to where passion-flamed Orion pursues 
the chaste Pleiades, and thence on to star clusters 
of lesser magnitude, circumventing the Milky Way, 
from shoreless Zenith to shoreless Nether,— 
where, throughout all can we find monument or inscrip¬ 
tion telling us, “here is a buried year?” Yet they are 
somewhere. There was a year, when llion’s battle 
towers yielded to Helos, and the shields and bodies of 
her heroes floated down the Samoan wave. A year when 
the bantlings of the vestal Bhea were cast into the Tiber 
and a she-wolf heard their cry. A year, when a star 
flashed over Bethlehem’s stable, and a babe was born 
that was cradled in a manger. A year when the Vandal 
hoofs of Alaric’s soldiers trod victoriously the tombs of 
the Caesars. A year when Zingis Khan built his pyr¬ 
amid of human bodies. A year when Mohammed dreamed 
among the drifting sand hills of Arabia. A year when 
Columbus sailed from Palos and also when a Declaration 
of Independence was written. All these have left their 
marks and monuments, but what marks have those years? 


14 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


Where have they found sepulture? Ah, dost thou not 
know? Hast thou not seen the bride and the bridegroom 
at the altar, when the vows were spoken? Vows that 
love originated, that had their growth in honor, and their 
ripening in mutual trust. They hold in their hearts a 
buried year. Hast thou not seen the babe., and the 
mother’s joy, as she looked into his round blue eye, and 
white cherub face? And seen him after, in manhood, 
his strong proud step, his broad shouldered bearing, the 
grace of his manly brow, and the tenderness and kind¬ 
ness of his heart toward that now aged and feeble 
mother. Ob, wherf she leans on his manly breast and 
strong right arm, she holds in her heart a buried year. 
On the tombs of such years we strew the garlands of per¬ 
ennial blessing. But hast thou not seen the maid—pure 
of heart—innocent—modest as the dove, and timid as 
the fawn, with her wrapt soul beaming in her love-lit 
eyes. And hast thou not heard the tale of scandal, and 
looked on that face again, when the rouge had vanished, 
and in its place the sickly lines of sorrow stood—dire 
Harbingers of a broken heart? In its blasted and seered 
emotions she holds in her heart a buried year. And hast 
thou not seen the drunkard—the weeping wife, the 
hungry children, the shameless debauchee, and the fallen 
denizens of the haunts, where the sirens sing, and crime 
stalks like a Scylla at a Charjbdis amid riot and ruin 
and sickning sin? They hold in their heart a buried 
year. But it is a year, that reeks with remorse, with the 
black shadow of desolation, whose memory is a fury, 
around whose waist the bunched serpents writhe and 
hiss, at whose feet the oozy slime is black and dank, in 
whose heart the worm and canker gnaw,, and from whose 
“horrid hair” shakes suffering and sin. As with individ¬ 
uals, it is so with nations. In their heart of hearts the 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


15 


buried years are either an Oases fountain or an Upas 
ooze. And so it will be with “this year” now “dying in 
the night. ” In the mystic picture land of thought and 
reminiscence, its monument will be for the races either 
a joy or a curse, and for each and all of us, as its days 
went with us, either a smile or a tear. On the niches of 
Old Time it will soon take its place shelved forever. But 
on the heart, scarred by a blighted, yet fondly cherished 
hope, its dying is even now too long. So let its knell 
be rung. 


“Ring out wild bells to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light, 
The year is dying in the night, 

Ring out wild bells and let him die.” 



/ 










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/ 



# 






& (£fyrtstmas 2ler>erie. 

December 31, 1889. 


This is the month, and this the happy morn, 

Wherein the Son of Heaven’s Eternal King, 

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, 

Our great redemution from above did bring ; 

For so the holy Sages once did sing, 

That he our deadly forfeit should release, 

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. 

—Milton. 

Hymn of the Nativity. 




















CHRISTMAS. 


It is strange, though simple, that an eternity may 
be in store for the humblest of mankind. That some lit¬ 
tle act, some word may echo through the oncoming ages, 
louder than the thunderbolts of war, louder than the 
clarion trumps of fame, louder than the convulsed groan 
of a riven world when nations die. No rule or precedent 
marks the path to immortality. There was nothing re¬ 
markable in that departure of Joseph, a poor carpenter 
of Nazareth, and his wife Mary, for their native city, 
Bethlehem. They left as did thousands of others, to obey 
the Caesar’s mandate. Nor was there anything remark¬ 
able in their arrival, when footsore and weary, they 
sought hospitality and found none. It was the most 
commonplace occurrence of that daj T . The world has al¬ 
ways known the homeless, and looked upon the unpitied 
poor. During that night, the world slept, reveled, sin¬ 
ned or sorrowed, as was wont. Yet that night, there 
flashed athwart the sky a mighty star, and the wizards of 
the East sought the new born Emmanuel, while Judean 
shepherds beheld a mighty multitude of angels singing: 
“Glory be to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace to 
to men. 

Peace to men! What did that strange utterance 
mean? Was there peace when Racheals wept, and the 
land of Judea, ran red with the blood of innocents? 
Peace, when the rabble shouted, “Barabbas! away with 
this man!’’ Peace, when on Calvary the Sun hid his 
face, and victorious Death tore the spirit from the hacked 



20 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


and bruised body of the Lamb of God? Peace, when 
Stephen was murdered, and Saul started for Damas¬ 
cus? Peace when the persecutions of the Caesars burst 
forth—the reddest narrative of cruelty and crime, when 
a Nero, an Elagabolus, a Severus, a Diocletian, a Max- 
iminian wore the purple? Peace, in gladiatorial arenas, 
in the Catacombs, in the Dacian forests, among the 
mountains of Thrace, on Syrian sands—when everywhere 
persecuted, outlawed, unprotected, without rights or 
privileges, the Christians endured the first three hundred 
years of their existence? Peace when Rome fell, and 
became the “Niobe of Nations?” Peace, in the red bat¬ 
tle fires, and Pillaged cities of the wandering Goths and 
Huns? Peace, during the Dark Ages, when learning was 
almost destroyed, and Europe was one mighty battle field 
of marauding nations, carving place for empire with the 
sword? Peace, when the world trembled at the approach 
of Mohammed, who, with sword and Koran, had overrun 
all the beautiful seats of Christian civilization in Asia 
Minor, Spain and Gaul? In the face of all these scenes 
of blood, it is indeed pertinent to ask: What did that 
“peace to men” mean? Yet there was “peace.” 
“Peace,” even amid the havoc blaze of battle, and around 
the bivouacs of the tented fields. Ere this time, life was 
but the hurried transit between two eternities—birth the 
beginning and death the end. Ere this time, no chart 
had marked the way to that “unknown country” where 
hope weighs anchor to learn the secrets on the “other 
shore:” No starbeam had as yet penetrated the dread 
“beyond.” All noble aspirations, all grand efforts of 
character and genius, all deeds of large-hearted love and 
sympathy, were but the ephemeral jet flames of a day. 
All was over in a farewell, a last look, a folded shroud, 
and a grave. But now a change! A “new morn” had 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


21 


risen on an endless night. A star had shown in the 
East, and its beams had penetrated the dreamless moor¬ 
lands of the tomb, and mirrored beyond that lone, ghastly 
worm carnival, the day of Resurrection. 

One notice, given by the sacred historian to that grand 
character, whose birth today we celebrate, is one not 
often mentioned, and yet it is the grandest of all. It is 
that wherever he went he was deeply loved by the “com¬ 
mon people.” Ah that meant something in that day of 
lawless might. The “common people” were the victims 
of every cruelty and oppression. Of no consideration in 
an age, when government meant extortion, and ambition 
scrupled at nothing; when debtors were slaves of credit¬ 
ors, and were bought and sold like sheep in the market, 
when confiscation and decimation were periodical as the 
seasons, when justice was a sham and a mockery, it must 
have been indeed welcome to hear from the lips of One 
whom “even the winds obeyed,” the bold figurative les¬ 
sons of the Brotherhood and Equality of man. And 
it is here that we find the turning point in the civilization 
of the world. All prior civilizations were failures. They 
originated in might, developed in cruelty and greed, and 
decayed in licentiousness and lust. But with him is a 
New Era. Blind Justice holds the scales. The potent 
monarch, the powerful prince, the persecuted bondsman, 
and the purchased slave are all equally amendable to law, 
—the divine law of human rights. And though philos¬ 
ophers may.elaborate, and charlatan deny, agnostic doubt 
and cynic ridicule, this grand Nineteenth century civ¬ 
ilization, with its pregnant possibilities leaping into life, 
is only the result of the teaching of that Wonderful Seer, 
who “walked the seas of Grallilee” of old, who went 
through the world doing good to all mankind, and was 
so deeply loved by the common people. 


22 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


But besides this principle of Equality, he taught a 
code of Ethics the purest and most far-reaching in its 
application to mankind. Before its rigorous virtue the 
enervating philosophy of Epicurus gave way. When 
licentiousness had destroyed the last vestige of the grand 
characters of Home’s heroic days, when polygamy and 
concubinage were universal, when women were every¬ 
where degraded on a level with the brute, and were slaves 
to the passions and cruelties of men, when slavery was 
universal in its most hideous form, when all the arts— 
music, poetry, painting and sculpture, had been degrad¬ 
ed, or existed only as a means to give sensuous gratifi¬ 
cation to lust and desire, when every household was 
where slaves toiled, and the master’s lash was heard, 
when the world seemed to have forgotten purity and 
chastity; it was then that this One selected twelve timid 
uneducated fishermen, who washed their nets in the Sea 
of Gallilee. For three years he taught them in his own 
school, and on leaving, breathed into them his spirit, and 
they spoke with Pentecostal tongues. What they taught 
the world had never heard. Slavery was antagonized, 
polygamy ceased to exist, virtue and purity were 
canonized, honesty, mercy, patience, self-sacrifice, char¬ 
ity, generosity and benignity were inculcated everywhere. 
Woman was raised to an equality with man, and as wife 
and mother of his children, was to be cherished and 
honored as an angel of love in the fireside realm of Home. 
And above this, there was a promise, that when life was 
done, when the sunset was fading on life’s vanishing day, 
there would be a safe journey across the wide sea of 
eternity to the havens of rest in the “many mansioned” 
home. Surely, surely, that song had a meaning: 
“Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to 
men.” 


Memorial X)ay. 

Dawn, Mo., May 30,1890. 


Wherever the brave have died, 

They should not rest apart; 

Living, they battled side by side, 

Why should the hand of Death divide 
A single heart from heart ? 

—Father Abram J. Ryan. 












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9 


f 






MEMO-RIAL DAY. 


We meet to-day upon the hallowed land of reminiscent 
love, fraternity and patriotism. We raise a memorial 
altar to our hero dead. We pour the libations of our 
tears, and offer for sacrifice the fairest flowers of our 
fields and gardens. How sweet their fragrance! It 
seems that Nature and mankind put on their kindest pres¬ 
ence to grace this Memorial Day. Doubtless Nature 
shares with man the love for the noble and the brave. 
“It is sweet and glorious to die for our country,” wrote 
the poet, Horace, two thousand years ago. This senti¬ 
ment may have been uttered long prior to that time. It 
still throbs in the human heart, lives in human affection, 
burns in the human soul, and directs the hand that lays 
in love the memorial garlands upon the hero’s grave. 
This is a day of requiems. 

The surviving comrades of that mighty conflict, ac¬ 
companied by a grateful and loving people, in slow pro¬ 
cession, journey to the place where the dust of their 
dead heroes sleep. What a sacred place is the re¬ 
gions of the dead? Who will carelessly tread upon a 
grave? Hate may have divided, Prejudice may have 
sown dissension, Ignorance may have ridiculed, Cruelty 
may have inflicted pain and suffering, Affection may 
have worn the weeds of disappointment, but it all ends 
when the heart is cold. The dead know not of tears. 
Their presence never disturb the denizens of this silent, 



26 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


peaceful place. The grave is the land of everlasting 
forgiveness. It is where all is forgiven and forgotten. 
Men war to the death, but there their vengeance cease. 
There the hand red with the foeman’s blood, will strive 
to stanch the flow, and that when vain, will give kind 
sepulture with sincere and sorrowing tears. Strange 
being man, ever treading the shadowy brink of love and 
hate. In love and generous emulation, he praises to-day 
the foe, that yesterday, thirsted or battled for his blood. 
Inspired by hate, his soul kindles at the conflict, and he 
commemorates in song of glory the cruel deeds of War. 
Cruel War,—Moloch-visaged, waged in brimstone 
flame, the grim monster of pestilence and slaughter, his 
locks crimsoned in heart’s blood, dyed in the havoc 
shriek and “Dance of Death.” Why should his deeds 
awaken song of glory? Why should his graves be gar¬ 
landed with our garden’s fairest flowers? Is it not a 
votive tribute upon the Altar of Cruelty and Hate? Ah, 
no! It is not that. It is not a religio-barbaric war 
worship that these memorial rites adorn. Nor is it the 
phantom termed glory that awakens the tribute. It i 3 
the inherent, untaught, unpictured outburst of feeling, 
heart feeling, that has lived and throbbed in the hearts 
of every race, the true hero-worship which love awards 
to the memory of the noble and the brave. Love clings 
to the sod, beneath which rest the ashes of a nation’s 
heroes. How sad that some have unknown graves? 
The brave should hot so rest; 

“ Wherever the brave have died, 

They should not rest apart; 

Living,'they battled side by side, 

Why should the hand of Death'divide 

A single heart, from heart.” 

But such is their fate. The bravest sleep in graves,— 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


27 


unmarked and unknown. Far from their home. Far 
from their comrades who battled beside them, they sleep 
by thousands, unknown and unrequiemed. But Love 
can not forget them. They too are sought, and over the 
graves of all, both the known and the unknown, tenderly 
the hand of Love strews to-day the memorial garlands, 
sweet tributes to the brave,—the nation’s heroes,—our 
“Deathless Dead.” 

The holiest and grandest attribute of human character 
is to be brave;—brave in all things,—brave in duty,— 
brave in business,—brave in love,—brave in peace and 
brave in war. The highest encomium that can be said 
of living man is, that “he is, in all things, brave.” The 
proudest epitaph that can adorn monument or me¬ 
morial shaft is, “He was brave.” To-day we meet to do 
honor to heroes that were brave, brave in war, brave in 
times thrice dreadful—brave when the nation’s existence 
was trembling in the balance, and the old flag, wreathed 
with the laurels of three conquests, was a hostile ensign 
among the very people that gave it half its stripes and 
some of its proudest stars—brave when the sons of the 
Palm and the Pine were marshalled in hostile front, and 
bivouac’s blaze and the muster tattoo were the heralds of 
that fratricidal conflict, the fiercest in the history of man. 
Then were they brave. We rejoice to-day in the glori¬ 
ous results of their labors. We spread memorial gar¬ 
lands above their graves. But not in the spirit of boast¬ 
ful triumph do we to-day honor the heroic dead, whose 
struggles resulted in a nation once more reunited. No, 
we bestow our memorial tributes in a nobler spirit than 
that of boasting victory. We, only in the sweet memen¬ 
toes of love, honor our hero dead, whether they fell in 
the flush of victory or in the gloom of defeat. We lay 
the garlands on their graves, which tell in the mystic 


28 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


symbal speech of love, thq abiding affection we have in 
our hearts for our country’s brave defenders. And is 
not such proper? We build Mausoleums to the illus¬ 
trious. The poet’s song is his monument. The dis¬ 
coverer leaves his name in the newly found continents, 
rivers or islands. The Astronomer writes his name 
among the stars. In every pursuit of peace or war, 
achievement signalizes the actions of the great, and se¬ 
cures their names in posterity’s care. But what mark 
or shaft memorial commemorates the unknown thousands 
who in the trying time of this great internecine conflict 
were not deaf .to Duty’s call? What pageant, what 
scroll emblazened stands unveiled to honor their names? 
What guerdon has a reunited land for the unknown dead 
who perished by thousands on the blood-slacked fields 
from Menassas to Appomattox? In the flush of man¬ 
hood they were cut down. No ministering hand was 
near. No eye of love or friend looked in theirs ere they 
glassed for the grave. No sweet fireside voice of the 
“olden time” whispered cheering admonition, as the 
scarred breast heaved its last, as the bronzed hand fell 
tensionless, and the stout soldier form, war-wasted and 
work-worn, yielded up its unconquered spirit in death. 
There ended their labors. Their dying eyes mirrored 
the stars of night. Their last happy look on earth was 
upon the old flag, star jeweled and glory wreathed, the 
emblem of right, liberty and law. In the mad glamor of 
victory that flag, they cheered and praised. In the still 
hour of death, that flag they loved and blest. It was glory 
to follow it, it was grand to fight for it, it was holy to 
die for it. Thus thousands, unnamed,—uncounted and 
unknown died,—the blood-slacked heath their death bed, 
—the sky their canopy, the grass, —dew-wet to bathe 
their fevered brows,—their set faces, wearing the sol- 


RANDOM FLASHES 


29 


dier’s unrelenting frown,—their “feet to the foe” and 
their breasts to the stars. For each, far away in some 
pleasant rural home was a fireside,—lone and desolate. 
It was there the warrior’s last thoughts rested. He 
thought of the hands he had rung at parting, of the 
children whose grief could not be stayed, of the wife 
who clung to his neck in a clasp “that would not break” 
till he pushed her away, and with emotion struggling 
betwixt love and duty, he had left them then, and marched 
away “to do and die.” But was that to be the end? 
Were their names and deeds to perish with that grim un- 
requiemed burial? Ah, no! The nation cannot forget 
her benefactors, nor can freedom her saviours. In their 
honor we garland their graves. And as each recurring 
Spring repeats the memorial tributes it is a pledge of 
perpetuity that— 

They will live and be loved 

In the hearts of the bold, 

Their names in eternity lie. 

And voices immortal their deeds shall unfold 

In songs that never can die. 

But, while we wreathe in tenderest love, the graves of 
our hero dead, who were loyal to the old flag, our requi¬ 
ems speak not one censure against the bold, noble hearts 
who battled against them, though in vain. The heroes 
of a conquered land are still heroes, though in defeat. 
The heroes of South-land, who battled so bravely in their 
cause, were not disloyal to the Union of the states. No, 
they fought for that Union as they understood it, and 
also as their fathers understood it. That struggle was 
the final and necessary arbitration of a great question 
ihat divided the nation from its beginning. Scarcely 
had the fiery baptism of blood ended in 1783, when that 
great question arose to divide hearts cemented by the 
comradeship of blood and battle during seven dreadful 


30 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


years. It was the threatening Specter in our country’s 
history. In all its councils it rose menacingly, as a 
dreadful aegis spreading terror in its.shadow and shak¬ 
ing from its ‘ ‘horrid hair pestilence and war. ” It could 
only be settled by the sword. Before that dreadful tribu¬ 
nal the heroes of South-land cast everything that life held 
dear, and sealed their devotion with their life-blood. They 
were ever a valiant foe, worthy of their steel. We would 
wrong the memory of our own brave heroes, to harbor 
aught of ungenerous sentiment against the gallant dead, 
that struggled against them with as noble a devotion to 
their principles, as ever inspired the soul of man “to do 
and die.” Nor can we forget that that struggle was a 
war between brothers;—and tnat the Harpy Dissension 
made enemies of hearts around which Love had woven 
his most sacred folds, by the peaceful glow of fireside, 
or mid the patter of boyish footfalls neath the family 
roof-tree in childhoods’ sunny day. That in that strug¬ 
gle ‘ ‘hearts broke off that ought to twine. ” So thus, with 
tears for both, the friend and foe, and censure for none, 
for both may have erred, but with generous love for all, 
we spread our sweet memorial wreaths with kind, impar¬ 
tial hand above the graves of all, no matter whether 
friend or foe, desiring only in fraternal hero-worship to 
remember all, for all were brave. All did honor to their 
cause. All by their heroism immortalized American valor. 
We will cherish their deeds, and their names shall be the 
inspiration of heroism in all time. On the graves of all*, 
whether the victor or the vanquished, we bestow our memo¬ 
rial wreaths. Their heroic devotion for principle will keep 
ever alive an “zeal for freedom and a love for country.” 
Thus over the chasm of fierce dissension past, we on this 
bright memorial day clasp hands in the spirit of Broth¬ 
erhood and Love. Such is the holy rite we solemnize. 


t 


RANDOM FLASHES. 31 

We honor the brave, whether of North or South. O’er 
the grave of both we place our impartial garlands, for 
both are the dead heroes of our common country. To 
both, in the inspired verse of O’Hara, we give the he¬ 
roes’ benediction as we wreathe their graves. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! 

Dear as the blood ye gave ; 

Xo impious footsteps here shall tread 
The herbage of your grave; 

Xor shall your glory be forgot 
While fame her record keeps, 

Or honor points the hallowed spot 
Where Yalor proudly sleeps. * 




A. 



























o 




■ 
































Cfye Hero £f?tr>alnj. 

Spoken in the Chapel of Missouri University, Feb. 11, 1888. 


They lay down to rest with corselets laced, 

Pillowed on buckler cold and hard ; 

They carved at the meal with gloves of steel, 

And quaffed the red wine through helmets barred. 

—Walter Scott. 









THE) NE)W CHIVALRY. 


Man is a child, cut adrift upon the great Ocean of 
living thought. Dangers beset him everywhere. Each 
hour has its struggle, whose closing moments, bring to 
him either a victory or a defeat. Dorn for fight marsh¬ 
alled in the discipline of suffering, inured to the hard¬ 
ships of disappointment, skilled in the dexterity of 
effort, at last he steps forth upon the arena of life, to 
take his place in the Valhalla of heroes, the tried 
champion, the warrior bold. From the fields of strife, he 
hopes to leave on the historic page, the record of a fame 
bravely won, urned in the shining tinsel that adorns 
a name. This was the ambition of heroes in the past. 
It is the same to-day. It is still a living and severe 
truth, that life is battle. That he, who triumphs, 
must still have the heart that burns with high hopes, 
the eye that kindles at the conflicts, the soul that dares 
the bravest, and triumphs or falls as the heroic Doug¬ 
las,— 

“When dead above the heart of Bruce 
The heart of Douglas lay.” 

The field of this conflict is between two eternities; the 
future, raven winged night; the past, the reeking bat¬ 
tle field of nations, in which, here and there, as the 
smoke clears by the light of History, we see the grap¬ 
pling hosts, the rent corselets and hear the battle 
groans. Man’s story is but the havoc tale of war. But 



3 G 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


war has fulfilled a true mission. It is the warlike spirit 
that is the spirit of progress. To the banner of martial 
strife, proud Fame points the exulting finger, and says, 
“Behold the Great.” Nor is that a boast. Around 
that banner legioned valor mustered her countless hosts, 
and the noblest men of earth have won the hero’s crown 
beneath the crimson folds. “The soldier is our Saviour, ” 
was ever the creed of nations. During the first thous¬ 
and years of her existence, Christianity never doubted 
this fact. On the contrary, she affirmed it, and bestow¬ 
ed her holiest blessings upon the warrior brave. This 
gave rise to Chivalry. But Chivalry softened not the 
stern front of war, it rather deepened the wrinkles by 
bringing long practiced discipline to the aid of impetu¬ 
ous valor. That she failed was not because her purpose 
was false. Chivalry was a truth, but a truth mistaken. 
The purpose was that purpose which the great and good 
of all times have followed:—to aid the weak, to repel the 
strong and to make throughout the world happiness grow 
and misery decline. Her code of honor was the most 
just the world has ever seen, embracing that high respect 
for superior, that reverential devotion to “lady fair,” 
which poets have so beautifully sung and cynics have 
not despised. In earth’s darkest hour she was the de¬ 
voted offspring of chaste, honor and ennobling virture. 
But the tender promptings of honor, and the timid 
pleading of virtue could not hold sway against the de¬ 
basement of indolence and licentious might. So her day 
of decline came. Her high purpose, her noble concep¬ 
tions, her poetical spirit,—all sank like the autumnal 
leaves into the grave of absolute failure on account of a 
mistaken means.- This, when naught but disappoint¬ 
ment came from the death couch of expiring Chivalry, 
was recognized ; and mankind saw that the ideal of hu- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


37 


man happiness could not spring from the reeking fields 
of war. For, when nations had ceased to wander, when 
they discovered the fact that their purpose was some¬ 
thing, aught besides being the brigands of the Universe, 
when swords hung rusting in the halls of inaction, and 
the battle torch was changed for the hearth-stone’s flame 
—when visions of peace dawned upon the warrior’s soul, 
it was then and there recognized that ere long the world’s 
battles must be waged on the broad and free field of 
THOUGHT. 

To fight the world’s battles upon this field, rose what 
may be justly called the New Chivalry. Her weapon 
was not the sword, guided by the dextrous art of arms, 
but reason guided by that finest of the flue arts—the art 
of doing good. Her purpose was that of the Old Chiv¬ 
alry,—the emancipation of the world. At the dawn of 
her existence she recognized the fact, that this is a sub¬ 
limely beautiful world. Too beautiful to be dese¬ 
crated by the rabid hand of violence, which throws the 
destinies of mankind into the merciless balance of anger¬ 
ed might. So beautiful, that it should be a place for 
mighty nations to rest in one universal brotherhood of 
peace. With this object as her goal, and hallowed Duty 
as her guide, this New Chivalry urged her conquests, and 
chose her knights, her heroes, and her kings. But not of 
that spirit which seeks high name in titled praise, by 
the humblest of all names have they been known;— 
.men call them ‘ ‘teachers. ” They are in-the truest sense 
the “New Chivalry.” They are the New Chivalry be¬ 
cause it is they, who have snatched from the grave of 
buried knighthood the motto: Honor and virtue must 
yet rule.” They are the New Chivalry because the de¬ 
fence of the world from the chaos of Anarchy, and the 
mornless night of Atheism lies in their hands. Is the^e 


38 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


a fear in any heart that this defence is weak? “We are 
safe,” says the old Spartan king;—“The Spartan sol¬ 
diers are at the walls.” This was an expression, 
which came from a consciousness of tried valor. Yet 
with the same exulting consciousness, it can be truly 
said tonight, “We are safe countrymen, our country’s 
soldiers are at the walls.” At the walls in seminaries 
and colleges,—sending forth their disciplined legions, 
each to be a recruiting centre to gather his followers, and 
extend the intellectual battle against wrong. At the 
walls in lonely rural districts,' where their toilsome life 
is passed, without a whisper of praise loud as the fall of 
the withered leaf. At the walls in heathen lands break- 
ing the torpor of centuries of superstition and idolatry, 
and scattering, like the sunbeams, the fadeless bloom of 
truth. At the walls,—the teacher, the soldier;—the vic¬ 
tory, culture;—the banner, honor,—and the moPo, 
“Peace.” 

It was a beautiful principle of the Old Chivalry, that 
the homage paid to woman was the highest—the most 
endearing,—and better still, it was true. With all the 
superciliousness that characterized the typical knight, 
woman was to his spirit the 4 ‘morning star. ” She was to 
him a vestal being, tender as the vine-bloom, that it was 
the highest sanctity of honor to protect and defend. 
But this was all. This was her limit,—an inflexible and 
unyielding limit. She had all devotion, but it was a de¬ 
votion won by a winning smile. She was never the he¬ 
ro. Only man was hero, and when her hero was fallen, 
she could but weep. This was the mistake. Woman’s 
purpose never was to be a being, remote from man, even 
in the most trying hours of gloom. She was by his 
side in that frenzy of patriotic despair, when the death 
moan of fated Carthage rose with the crackling flames 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


30 


of burning habitations, and rebound the broken bows 
with her plucked locks, to hurl shafts on the cohorts of 
Rome. By his side in the French Revolution, showing 
in that frenzy of Cimmerian chaos, that if man could 
die as became a king, she could die as became a queen. 
By his side whenever there was a sweet undiluted joy to 
share, or a crushing heart pang pleading kindness to 
mingle tear with tear. So with him today, in this 
great intellectual battle, she is still the morning star in 
honor’s sky, with the added tribute,—she is hero too. 
And what lands have not awarded her the “Olive 
Wreath?” There is not a race of earth, but, when scrol¬ 
ling the names of its true heroes upon fame’s pinnacle, 
must write upon the highest arch—“Woman as teach¬ 
er.” Nor while thus urging with might and main the heav¬ 
en-born light of knowledge, has she lost one spark of that 
inspiring tenderness, that bewitching loveliness, which 
the Old Chivalry adored. Only with added lustre beam 
they forth. Woman as teacher fulfills the climax of 
her mission. She strives but to win, and wins but to 
save. 

It is a remarkable fact of History,—that whenever a 
brave people are conquered, their fate between race ex¬ 
tinction and existence lies in their schools. The school 
is the last bulwark, the teacher—the captain who briDgs 
up the forlorn hope to fill in the scattered lines, and rally 
the broken hosts. So was it with the Jews. When torn 
from their native land again and again, and at last with¬ 
out a hope of ever returning, their high priest and nobil¬ 
ity chained to the chariot wheels of all conquering Titus, 
one could but think: “The race of Abraham is no 

more.” But the Jew took.his defeat as the brave, when 
disarmed and shackled. He studied, he founded schools. 
And, though, exiled, his has become an intellectual peo- 


40 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


pie, whose unconquered patriotism burns but warmer 
after the lapse of ages, and nurtures yet the fond hope 
of a united race, while they sigh as their ancestors in 
Egyptian exile sighed for Jerusalem, “The Holy,” for 
the valleys of J udea and the rugged sea-washed shores 
of Galilee. Likewise was it with Prussia when over 
her land swept the invincible legions of one, whom men 
called “The child of Destiny.” Before him rose popu¬ 
lous cities, fields golden with ripening grain, and habita¬ 
tions of peace. Behind him—black ruin, heaps of ashes 
slacked in blood. The nation of Frederick the Great 
fell from her high prestige. Her poets sang the wail of 
her departed glories. Only a whisper, coming now and 
then across the waters, telling us that Prussia ‘ ‘was ex¬ 
perimenting in Education,” could we hear of that once 
warlike people. But think not this “experimenting” 
was weakening the hardy valor of her warlike sires. No, 
she was but ‘ ‘as the eagle mewing her mighty youth, 
and kindling her eye in the mid-day beam,” that she 
might wing her flight undazzled to heights where pinions 
never dared to climb. Imperial Austria sought to 
check her flight. Two words—Koniggratz and Sadowa, 
answer in sepulchral tones where her hosts went down 
before this young Hercules of nations. France, flushed 
with victory, attempted the same. In six months time, 
her eagles were trailing in the dust, her empire over- • 
thrown, and she, in the presence of the world, pleaded 
the mercy of this nation, that had been ‘ ‘experimenting 
in Education.” This “Experimenting” is the light-orb 
of intellectual strength, the polar star of perpetuity, 
and the beacon light of progress. The nation that so 
experiments writes perpetuity on her banner. Ask 
Egypt, ask Borne, whose proudest monuments now 
crumble ’neath the ghastly teeth of ruin, where and 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


41 


why their glories faded? How short is the answer— 

“The sword is mighty but a day: 

Thoughts eternal empire sway.” 

Had the pyramids been schools, their very shadow 
would have kept eternal the spirit of ancient grandeur 
and power, and the Nile valley would today be the clas¬ 
sic land of earth, instead of that waste, to which the 
traveller comes to view the mighty mausoleums of a bar¬ 
barian dead. Had those proud galleys,—cutting the 
briny main with the ensigns of the Caesars floating from 
the mast-heads, borne from the “Eternal City” to the 
provinces, legions of able educators, and not bands of 
maurauding soldiers;—Yirgil’s prophecy would doubt¬ 
less have been fulfilled, “Old Rome would have termi¬ 
nated, her Empire with the ocean and her fame with the 
stars.” 

But it is easy to stand upon the ashes of the dead, while 
they slumber in their voiceless urns unable to give a neg¬ 
ative whisper, while we say what could have been. Not 
so easy is it to say what will be. But it is the lesson of 
all History, that, “As nations become intellectual, they 
become peaceful.” And at this hour, while the intel¬ 
lectual progress of our country makes her the miracle of 
nations, and the races of earth look not to other lands 
as hostile shores, can we not discern some “gray lines” 
fretting the future sky,—true harbingers of a glorious 
day? A day when Rachels shall no m^re weep, and 
men shall no more battle beneath the flouting banners of 
death? When this New Chivalry will be an adequate 
defence against all violence, by reason of her broad liber¬ 
al humanity, and high principles of honor, and the na¬ 
tions will adjust all difficulties ‘neath the rainbow-em¬ 
broidered and star-woven bow of peace? When the les¬ 
sons of the past will be reversed, and mankind will fire 


42 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


the farewell salute over the grave of wrinkled-browed 
War? Methinks I see the day. A New Civilization 
dawning on our sight, while the memories of war and 
bloody renown sink into the depths of mornless night, 
like the fading stars falling slowly in the West, throwing 
back a few sighful twinkles for ways forgotten and glo¬ 
ries departed, but persuading the sun to rise, and scatter 
undimmed his glory throughout the World—the glory of 
lasting —UNIVERSAL PEACE. 





£f?e (Dlb (Sbucatton anb 

tfye HetP. 

Written in May, 1888, at Columbia, Mo. ' 


Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, 

Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

—Lord Byron. 














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THE OLD EDUCATION AND THE NEW. 


The superficial writers and thinkers of this day are 
continually speaking of the New Education. The 
knowledge of the ancients they denominate the ‘ ‘Old Ed¬ 
ucation,” and the wonderful developement of the knowl¬ 
edge of the ancients in our day they style “the New.” 
Such theory asserts an impossible law of growth. It 
links to the cradle the idea of age, and turns the dotage 
sneer upon Education’s stormy morning, and hails it now 
as new-born, when it blazes at its noon. In truth there 
never was an “Old Education,” nor is there a “New.” 
Education is not a complexus of methods, and theories, 
invented from time to time, but the practical result of all 
intellectual effort, put forth by man, since the morning 
of his existence, when with hopes, gorgeous as an 
autumn sunset, he started on the long, untried pilgrim¬ 
age of progress. Its growth at different times, has had 
various accelerations. It has never been a dazzling sun¬ 
burst, leaping from misty twilight into glorious day, 
but ever the slow, majestic march of mankind’s grandest 
idea to its honored goal. The apostles of this new Ed¬ 
ucation, fix the date of its incarnation some time during 
Renaissance, or about the beginning of the 16th century. 
They speak of Education being extinguished, and of the 
torpidity of all intellectual improvement during the dark 
Ages. Then unheralded, and unexpected, like a sun¬ 
rise at midnight, their “New Education” flashed over 



46 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


the world, glorious as a rainbow and resplendent as a 
star. Was such the case? Is the rapturous praise, which 
they bestow upon their intellectual goddess, due to a 
being of 16th century birth? What says History? 

The History of the world gives, and not unjustly, to 
Education the coward part. Though pictured as a god¬ 
dess, and sung in enraptured strain by minstrel, bard 
and priest, she has nevertheless wooed repose in the wake 
of the conquerer. She never had permanent place 
among the fallen. Though peace was her element, she 
lived beneath a sword, and behind the strong ramparts, 
reared by the hand of conquering valor, she built her 
proudest edifices. The convulsions of war, and the 
groan of dying races, never disturbed her, till the hor¬ 
rors mantled her favorite seat, and then she fled. Nor 
turned she back again, to that scene of desolation, where 
yet her true votaries wooed her well. Once was her abode 
in the Nile valley, but in hour of misfortune she imagined 
a safer hold among the beatling headlands, and moun¬ 
tains of Greece, and thither she fled. But again in 
hour of disaster, Borne offered her safer refuge, and 
thither she took her flight. For five hundred years 
she smiled on Latium’s race, but again came destruction, 
and again was flight. Thus has Education ever been a 
wandering light, radiating its transcendent glories be¬ 
hind the shadows of conquering shields. Two things in 
the past, as in the present, has given it life and devel¬ 
opment: 

(1.) Security. 

(2.) Association. 

The security of a nation from overthrow, the posses¬ 
sion of a strong substantial government, is vital to the 
growth and development of Education. This accounts 
for the slow growth from the fall of Borne to the begin- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


47 


ning of the 15th century. When that mighty collapse 
of progress appalled the world, it was not the earth¬ 
quake ruin, the blaze of torches, the reeking blood of 
senators, murdered in their seats, that made the devotee 
of civilization tremble. Staring him in the face, in 
bolder prominence than the black charred palaces of 
Rome, was a world to be recivilized, a work of a thous¬ 
and years:—five hundred to tame the Northland blood 
.of Goth and Hun, and five hundred more to turn their 
fierce, ruthless energy to the nobler pursuits of peace. 

The rise of Islam, while it shook the nations of Europe 
to their centre, forced an association of races, from which 
has developed the international commerce of the present 
day. From that Association, Europe learned the ad¬ 
vantage of consolidated governments, over the brigand 
ravages of the feudal tribes. It was not the rescue of a 
crumbling tomb, that was the full dream of that Apol¬ 
lo-voiced orator, Peter the Hermit. No, above the Mo- 
loch-visaged havoc, which his genius inspired, he, doubt¬ 
less saw the shimmer of a glorious future, when those 
races, then for the first time “shoulder to shoulder” al¬ 
lies, “baptized in blood” should from the mournful 
memory learn mutual trust and love. The unburied 
thousands strewn on Tuscan sands and Syrian moors, 
could not shake that dream. There where those hosts 
sank by the Harpy-tooth of death, the races of Europe 
learned their mutual valor; and from that valor learned 
esteem. They learned the advantages of race interming¬ 
ling with race in the pursuits of trade, and from that 
date, we see them uniting more and more in the bonds 
of commerce. Rome, the centre of pilgrimage, during 
the Hark Ages aided this Association of races, and the 
ensign of culture was the pilgrim’s staff. But this As¬ 
sociation could not, of itself, develope a strong, vigorous 


48 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


race—Education. The timid goddess would not smile, 
while the sword,to-day bright, might be tomorrow broken. 
While the arms of Islam thundered beneath the walls of 
Yiena, and over the hilltops of the round world, the first 
morning sunbeams, kissed the warlike crescent, while 
later beams touched the Cross buried in the hazes of 
fleeting twilight, Education stood in fearful quandary, 
whether to make her central seat at Mecca or at Rome. 
Roth races had the incentive, “Association,” but where 
was “ Security ”? This boon was contested on many a 
bleeding field. At last the Cross rose triumphant. The 
defeated Crescent grimly withdrew. By this defeat, the 
permanency of European civilization was established, 
and the Discovery of America by Columbus following, 
almost ere the last salute over conquered Islam had died 
away in Pentecostal echoes of smoke and fire, a mighty 
impetus was given to Association. The Reformation 
following shortly, this spirit of Association was increased 
in a wonderful degree, by the zeal of proselyters to win 
votaries to their opposing creeds. Security established, 
and Association of races thus intensified a hundred fold, 
can we wonder, that at this time a great revival of intel¬ 
lectual activity astonished the world, and Education the 
timid goddess, trembling for a thousand crimsoned years 
in fearful disquiet and anxiety, should at last take up 
her abode among the consolidated nations of Europe? 

It is true her welcomed presence was like a flash of 
glory in the dark, and the enraptured world bedazzled, 
called the wonder “A new created light.” But whosoever 
views the crumbling monuments of buried Empires, and 
reads the songs of bards, and the utterances of sages, 
who as seers for all time, spoke nobly the truth in the 
most bedarkened ages of that raven-shrouded past, might 
ask, “What is New”? What science, what philosophy, 


RANDOM FLASHES 


49 


wbat principles, what code of ethics have we to-day to 
which we can point, and say, behold the new-created won¬ 
der which our fathers never knew? Have we such a won¬ 
der? Or are all improvements in Education merely 
elaborations of old theories and principles, hallowed by 
the gray fingers of Time, and conceived, though in min¬ 
iature state, in the hoary days of Old, while yet the 
gods loved the companionship of the young human race 
and Jehovah’s cloud of flame led his exiled children 
home. Is the science of Astronomy “New”? With eye 
unglassed, scanning the misty sky-vault upon its pillars 
of fadeless blue, the ancient Chaldean read true story 
in the stars. Is the sciences of Geometry, Mensuration 
and Navigation “New” ? The Pyramids front the North 
Star, the streets and walls of Old Damascus bespeak the 
engineer’s craft, and the Phenician Galleys, helmless, 
were fearless on the wave. Is the science of Physical 
Culture New? “A beautiful soul in a beautiful body” 
was the Athenian motto. Nor are the principles of lib¬ 
erty and justice modern-born. Old, as the great round 
Earth, their voice guided mankind in times more hoary 
than the record of bard or sage. Old, when Marathon 
and Luctra were fought,—Liberty and Justice but re¬ 
peated themselves at Bunker Hill and Yorktown. The 
nobler instincts of the heart, high filial respect, love of 
home, reverence of duty, honor and chastity were practic¬ 
ed and commended long before the Revival of Learning. 
There were even practices in the most distant past, that 
no true heart can behold, but must exclaim, “Would 
they were now”! In the Pharaoh’s Empire, the tottering 
form of age never craved for shelter or kindness, a king 
would notice a shepherd’s gray hairs, and “in Sparta, it 
was a pleasure to grow old.” Nor were the Dark Ages 
a sunset hour of intellectual growjth. There were even 


50 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


then in every land, noble, self-sacrificing hearts laying 
the foundations of a broad world embracing culture, un¬ 
appalled by the martial tramp of migrating races, carv¬ 
ing place for empire with the sword. Baeda, Cuthbert, 
and Edmund Kich were in their day as earnest and self- 
sacrificing for the promotion of Education as Pestaloz- 
zi and Horace Mann in theirs. Nor were the teachers 
efforts unappreciated in those times. The history of the 
world has not a more striking example of respect paid to 
teacher, than that furnished by the Great Charlemagne, 
where he, the monarch of united Europe with the nobles 
and vassals of his kingly swa}^ was seated at the feet of 
the English monk Alcuin, hearing his instructions with 
all the earnest zeal and respect of the true seeker after 
knowledge. 

The boast of the Revival of Learning is the cultiva¬ 
tion and development of the Vernacular languages among 
the Germanic nations. But this course of Education was 
historic before that date. Long before the green val¬ 
leys of Italia gladdened the rapacious heart of the sturdy 
Goth, some nameless Homer sung of hero, nobler than 
Achilles, while his great Northland heart was as suscept- 
able to the touch of pity^ as violet’s cheek to drop of 
dew. As a representative of the lofty grandeur and 
beautiful simplicity of the true English character Boe- 
wulf has never been surpassed. Yet every sentence of 
this magnificent Epic is in as pure vennacular, as the first 
words of Wodin when he left his Northland snows. In 
Germany the songs of Nieberlung bear the marks of no 
Latin invader. But, not only in their migratory days, 
did the Germanic nations cultivate their own speech. 
Even when the grasping hand of Latinism had its 
strongest hold, Caedmon sang of a lost Paradise, Bae¬ 
da’s dying breath was translating the Gospel into his own 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


51 


Northumbrian speech, and Alfred’s glory as king is ob¬ 
scured by his greater glory, as “teacher of the English 
people.” 

We thus see, that Education is a growth, old as the 
human race, loved and appreciated in ages more hoary, 
than Gothic Arch or Corinthian pile, and among peoples 
unknown, save by the moss-clasped kairn, or sod-wreath¬ 
ed quarry, where their dissolved ashes sleep. That the 
Renaissance was no double day of burial and birth, 
when the requiems were sung over the grave of an effete 
Education, and from the fresh-piled earth, sprang forth 
a new-born giant, and the world “looked and saw.” 
No, there was no death. There was no birth. That 
was only a day of thrice-marvelous growth. But that 
growth was of the same old tree, transplanted from the 
Nile valley to Greece, thence to Rome, and from Rome 
to the farthest limits of the Earth. It was that same 
old tree, pruned in the shock of relentless war, grafted 
by the infusion of barbarism with culture, creed with 
creed, and race with race, which when this bleeding pro¬ 
cess was ended, the mighty trunk, fertilized so long by its 
growth in soil saturated with blood, amazed the world 
by its millioned fold multiplicity of branch, bud and 
fruit. 

Education, thus considered gives dignity and gran¬ 
deur to the human race throughout all time. To say 
that, this present grand civilization is a product of a 
Newborn system of Education, conceived in the fiery time 
of Renaissance, virtually ignores the efforts of the hon - 
ored dead, whose mistakes and achievements were the 
pioneer milestones that guided and made possible the 
gigantic labors of the heroes of that time. What was 
Education in the remotest past, is Education today. 
Immutable as truth, and as enduring as time, the growth 


52 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


of Educatian has been the growth of progress. Nor did 
any branch once put forth ever decay, though the misle- 
toe of vice and superstition often nearly concealed the 
bloom. Education is old, for it taught Homer to sing 
Ilion’s fall. It is old for it taught the Greek to culti¬ 
vate his barren hills, till they were blooming gardens, 
and the Roman to connect his empire with roads and 
aqueducts. It is old, but not in the sense of being 
effete. As the furrows deepen on its honored front, the 
vigor and animation beaming from the scarred ridges 
bespeak perennial youth. Truth is ever dear, but an 
old truth has a hallowed sanctity, recalling the millions 
led to virtue in the myriad ages gone. Education is one 
of the oldest of truths. More ancient than Egyptian 
Obelisk is the school-house, and Hapsburg and Bragan- 
za cannot boast of as ancient a line as the teachers there¬ 
in. But crumbling Obelisk is a monument of death, 
rearing its sepulchral shaft in the clear noonday blue, 
speaks in undeciphered hieroglyphics, “Here is death.” 
The school house is a monument of growth, accumulat¬ 
ing energy, speaking in the language of the morning sun¬ 
beam, “Here is life.” Upon that mysterious strait, 
where the departing past grasps hand with the oncom¬ 
ing future, from these monuments of life have ever is¬ 
sued souls ennobled by culture, and inspired with the 
aggressiveness of intellect. From these monuments, 
radiating as a starbeam in the night, Education has 
ever advanced. From the dawn till today, Education’s 
banner, a deathless scroll, has been graven with the 
four words, that express the limit of mortal effort: 
Teacher, School, Culture, and Progress. Education can 
in no sense be called “New,” except in its widespread 
diffusion. But is that sufficient reason to strip it of its 
ancient mantle, and give it the vaunting 16th century garb 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


53 


“New?” Are there not something too sacred in the hoary 
folds of that mantle, carried down the ages on the shoul¬ 
ders of Earth’s only true regal line from Solan to Eras¬ 
mus, from Erasmus to Newton, to dare ignore its origin 
or stain it with a modern dye. The boldest iconoclast 
would not be more profane. Nearly two thousand years 
ago, twelve illiterate fishermen constituted the Chris¬ 
tian world. Now their race has increased, and their 
principles span the Earth. But who so profane as to 
call their creed and teaching at their time the “Old 
Christianity?” None. But no voice of disapproval 
comes, when that Education which taught a Homer, a 
Virgil, a Dante is designated as “Old.” Not old in the 
sense applied to some cherished heirloom or some venerat¬ 
ed ruin, around which Love perennially wreathes her gar¬ 
lands in the memorials of praise, But “Old’ ’ in the sense 
of being worn out and useless. Such is indeed profane. 
There is no “New Education.” There was no “Old.” 
Education counts not its growth by years, nor does its 
morn ever look for night. 

“Time writes no wrinkle on its azure brow.” 

More wonderful than Benaissance may be the Educa¬ 
tional development of the future. But as long as 
Greece lives in song, and men remember that there was 
a B,ome, let none dare call it “New.” 









4-Butlbtng.* 

Read at a Teacher’s Meeting, February 26,1888. 


Build me here, 0 worthy Master, 
Straight and tall a goodly vessel, 
That will stand all disaster. 

—Longfellow. 
















BTLJII^DING. 


‘ ‘I can not play on an}’ stringed instrument, but I can 
tell you how to make, out of a small village, a great and 
populous city. ’ ’ Thus spoke Themistocies when adverse 
fortune drove him in ignominy a refugee from Greece, 
which he had saved, to the court of the “Great King, ” 
whose armies had wasted faster from the strokes of his 
genius than from ten thousand Grecian spears. Laying 
no claim to the Great Master’s Architectural skill, for the 
glory of Salamis and Platea is yet seen in the fallen 
chieftain’s last utterance, I, nevertheless, invite you this 
evening to consider a subject more vast than the chang¬ 
ing of a village to a city, the moulding, engraviag, 
forming, stamping of Character, orinaword, Manhood 
Building. 

True finished Manhood is built. The crude material 
in kind is various. In some instances it may have 
natural shapeliness of form, but in none is the finished 
product. The Master’s handicraft is called forth to finish 
the work, which when completed all admire. Angello 
says to his statue, — “Walk.” But the clever cast, pat¬ 
terned so perfect, is but pulseless marble. It stirs not. 
Manhood’s craftsman says to his cast, — “Walk,” and 
proudly like a spread pennnant on an azure sea, it 
moves. None are so dull, but perceive its majesty. 
The very Earth trembles under his feet. Faction is 
silent. The quibbler speaks not. The cynic hides his 



58 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


head. The king,—the prince of destiny,—Manhood is 
aroused. Why sing vaunting tributes to Nimrod, Marius, 
Alexander, and Caesar? This is what made them great. 
But it is needless to tell the enraptured Sculptor the 
greatness of his work. It is needless to tell him the de- 
sign. While his material was yet formless clay, in his 
mind the master-piece was fashioned in its faultless 
symmetry, and there pedestaled. So is it needless for 
me to dwell upon the greatness and design of the mighty 
work of w T hich the teacher is the chief architect. Let it 
be assumed that we are cognizant of all that. That we, 
standing on the peaks, where time’s surges seethe be¬ 
tween the hoarse-dashing billows of the Past, and the 
Future’s oncoming torrent, recognize the fact that the 
faithful teacher, where these waters meet, is the true 
Pilot of the “Old Ship of Progress. That we antici¬ 
pate the fact, that when the nineteenth century closes, 
in every civilized land, dear as the dearest heart utter¬ 
ance of home and country, will be the nineteenth century 
motto,—School and Teacher.” But the teacher must 
hasten on this feeling and prove himself worthy of such 
praise. He must not sit supine, and await this hale of 
welcome. Like the crested knight, with lance couched, 
and shield bright, his arm brawned by constant effort, 
and with thews like plaited mail, he must urge his ac¬ 
hievement. Nor rest till every field is won, and the 
world sings the glad anthem song of prosperity and 
peace. 

But, you will ask, how can achievement be accelerated 
or new conquests attempted? In every field of science 
or intellectual investigation there are master minds ap¬ 
plying their laborious efforts to the solution of every 
problem. The world has unnumbered scholars, and 
every scholar is more or less a teacher. Where then 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


59 


will we attempt untried conquests? Where shall the 
teacher, the architect and builder of intellectual force 
and progress, seek fields for his craft? Certainly I do 
noi mean to quoth Webster’s saying:—“There is room 
at the top,” but the converse “There is room at the bot¬ 
tom.” Room in every neglected rural district of this 
land, for the application of the best ability and talents. 
Room in the dingy street, causeway, alley or hovel for 
hearts that would build statues not of marble quarried 
in Hampshire or Paros, but statues out of marble, flush¬ 
ed with throbbing life, “crimsonveined” fretted with 
cheek blush and eye-sparkle, moulded on Earth but fash¬ 
ioned for the skies. 

Wendal Phillips said: “The problem of the age is the 
government of a city. ” Very trite but true. The man who 
tells how to secure perfect honesty and exact justice in 
collecting and disbursing all municipal revenue, who tells 
how to prevent embezzlements, thefts, midnight assassina¬ 
tions, riots and street brawls, and other crimes ; who tells 
how to break forever the serpent grasp of Intemperance, 
to destroy the haunts of vice, to change the hovels along 
our dark and dingy streets, to pleasant happy homes 
and banish from our midst the ghastly cry 'of craven 
want, hunger and suffering, who tells us how to provide 
for the homeless youth who grow up in idleness, un¬ 
cared for, when they should be preparing for future use¬ 
fulness, who tells how to adjust the city drainage and 
ventilation so that these dreadful diseases as Diptheria, 
Small pox, Scarlet fever, etc., will not periodically ap¬ 
pear leaving their death marks in the family records of 
every home, w T ho tells how to change tears to smiles, 
anxiety to rest, want to plenty, throughout the limits of 
all our cities, he is the future king, and on glory’s 
scroll the expected hero,—a prince of peace. I believe 


60 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


such a one may eventually come. He will speak words- 
of wisdom. It is your duty to see that those words of 
wisdom be understood. It is the teachers work to build 
talent in the region where Nature has implanted mind. 
This I will consider under three heads. 

(1.) Place. 

(2.) Work. 

(3.) Reward. 

In regard to place, the teacher has a wide choice. As 
there is not a spot of Earth so barren, but the April 
shower will moisten and soften with the signs of spring¬ 
ing verdure, so is there no society so debased, but the 
presence of the heroic self-sacrificing teacher will benefit. 
But this choice should not be governed entirely by per¬ 
sonal consideration. That divine aftlatus,which inspires 
a Loyola or a Wesley, should in a great measure dictate 
his choice. He should seek the place where his teach¬ 
ing will be most beneficial, or in a word he should labor 
where he can do most good. It is well to be ambitious 
and aim upward. It is well to seek Fortune’s favor 
and be lulled by the Siren voice of Fame. Yet it is a 
sad fact, that the men, who have enjoyed fortune’s high¬ 
est favor, and heard Fame’s loudest trump, have in many 
instances strayed far from Duty. This no teacher can 
afford to do. He, alone of all, owes it to his honor, to 
himself and to his race to be the steadfast child of hal¬ 
lowed Duty. Before a teacher takes a school, he should 
have in mind a certain work to do, and until that work 
is completed he should not leave that place. There are 
footfalls on the doorsteps, and voices calling him, which 
he should heed. Voices, who in his methods have 
learned but half a subject, which to learn by another’s 
method, would rob them of a year. This is no hyper¬ 
bole. The distracted, unsystematic condition of our pub- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


61 


lie schools, in the country, is mostly due to the fact that 
the teachers therein are a tribe of nomads, more frequent 
in their migrations than the Bedouins of Arabia. The 
nomad is the true type of semi-barbaric life. A roving 
population does little to push the wheels of Progress. 
It is, to use the sturdy Anglo-Saxon phrase, the husbund- 
man, or the man bound to a house or home, that forms 
the bone and sinew of every nation’s strength. These 
are the men, that scatter the thrift of civilization, who 
build cities, while their plough shares mellow the tough 
native sod, as the wild forests fall before them. These 
were the men that made England mistress of the seas. 
It was the inspiring thought, that they were home 
men; which made those sturdy yoemen of Eagland 
such dreadful foes against the forced hirelings of 
France at Crecy and Agincourt. It is the men bound 
to homes, that represent the wealth, the progress, and 
the dignity of the country, state and nation. The} r con¬ 
stitute a country’s prop in hour of peace, and her ram- 
parts in hour of peril. They form that dauntless phal- 
lanx, who fall in their places in the same serried ranks, 
where they stood, with grim faces, fierce in death, with 
“feet to the foe,” and wounds fronting the stars. The 
growth of a nation, is the growth of homes. The 
strength of a nation lies not in the number of its inhab¬ 
itants, but in the number of its homes. Beware of the 
country of many homes. That country’s fortresses are 
hearthstones and firesides, more impregnable than walls 
of brass or bars of steel. This principle should be ap¬ 
plied to the teaching profession. The teacher should be 
a husbundman; his school should be his home, not tem¬ 
porary, but a permanent habitation. 

How disastrous, this capricious fickleness of changing 
teachers every year, or worse, at the end of every 


G2 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


term. It is enough to dull the ardor of the most elastic- 
heart. “Who will sow a field for another to reap?” 
None. Yet this is the very condition of our public 
schools in country districts. A teacher is employed, and, 
if he does not please the whims of some of his patrons, 
he loses his place. One short talk he had with his pu¬ 
pils, the screen dropped, and he saw them no more. 
The work he began is unfinished. Another takes his 
place, and he no better than his predecessor, at the end 
of his term, like the nomads of Sythia, must gather his 
chattels and seek a new place. Because he does not, like 
his Sythian ancestor, light the fires of destruction at his 
departure, is that the nineteeth century nomad, has 
improved in humanity, without changing his habits. 

There is nothing which adds dignity to any profession, 
as the snow-crowned locks of age. Youth gives beauty, 
and breaks monotony by its sparkling vivacity. But a 
mighty movement, anticipating grand results, must be 
guided by the sage Nestors, voicing their grave counsels 
by pointirg to the hilltops of long experience tried. 
All great movements to be successful must be guided 
by* the experience of age. Not as the poets sing, would 
I sing. My harp would not sing of angel fingers play¬ 
fully carressing the golden locks of laughing youth, but 
rather, of them being laid in reverential dalliance on the 
white locks of age. Age impersonates wisdom, trans¬ 
figures holiness and is the emblem of Divinity. But 
look over this vast army of public school teachers, es¬ 
pecially in the country, where do we find the sage Nes¬ 
tor, with his snowy brow? He is absent. A vast army 
of inexperienced } T ouths, averaging about twenty years 
of age, without leadership, without organization, consti¬ 
tutes our marshaled hosts, that assail the demon-guarded 
walls of Ignorance. Why is this? Why is there not 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


03 


found in this most important of all professions, the firm 
guidance and sage counsels of Age? Because there is 
no permanency of place, no certainty of tenure in office. 
Though the hearts most honest efforts be applied, 
though restless energy may have kept the faithful teach \ 
er awake long nights in weary research to properly guide 
his little flock, it gives him no guarantee that he will be 
his own successor. To romantic youth this nomadism 
may have attractions, but Age is domestic, and long ere 
the wrinkles gather, the hearts sighs for a permanent 
place. And thus, we see most of our teachers after a 
few years, though ripe with valuable experience, leave 
the profession of teaching for some other mode of life, 
perhaps not more lucrative, and often less attractive, 
simply because it gives them a permanent business, and 
soothes the natural longings of the heart that will not be 
a pilgrim, if there is aught where it may rest. 

If it were the custom that a teacher so long as he de¬ 
sired, should be allowed and expected to hold the same 
school, w r e would soon find in our profession not only 
impetuous youth, but also venerable Age,—the glory of 
all dignified professions. To briDg this about, the em¬ 
ployment of a teacher, should be like the appointing of 
a supreme judge, during good behaviour. Changing 
teachers from term to term should be discontinued by 
the boards and resented by the profession. Every 
school house in the country should have a cottage close 
by, the property of the district, the same to be the teach¬ 
er’s residence. The teacher should be required to live 
there, and the care of the property of the district 
should be always in his charge. That place should be 
his home. Thus arranged, our country schools would be 
taught by teachers, who arc married and have families, 
and would overcome the condition of the present, which 


64 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


is, on account of low salary, and lack of other accomoda¬ 
tions, a teacher is compelled to abandon his profession, 
when he marries. Teaching, as now, in country schools, 
may do for boys and girls, but it is impossible for any 
one who has the support of a family to maintain himself 
at the present status. This arrangement, would not in 
anywise disqualify lady teachers, as most of our lady 
teachers contribute largely from their earning 3 to support 
a mother, or educate a sister, or in some manner have some 
one depending on them for support, and by having a 
home to live in furnished them, in close proximity to the 
school house, they would be saved a great expense now 
incurred, aud the convenience of such an arrangement, 
would make their work more effective. Married teachers 
under such a plan would-be preferred, and ouryoung and 
inexperienced boys and girls who are heart whole and 
fancy free, would not have the advantage as now, 
which is such that on account of lack of accommodations 
they are ennabled to drive out of the profession any 
teacher who is encumbered with a family. And right 
here let me say, that while I do not wish to say aught 
against any one, but there seems to be an unwritten law 
or custom that when a lady teacher marries she must 
cease to be a teacher.* That is, the business to which 
she has devoted the be3t years of her life to learn, and 
which on account of her ardent devotion to the same is 
part of her life, she must at once and forever forego, if 
in the tenderness of her woman soul, she gives her 
heart to the noble pleadings of honorable love. I have 
not words at my command to express my contempt for 


♦When this was written, the School Boards in many of our large 
cities had passed rules against employing lady teachers who were 
married. I am glad to know that those Boards, as well as their rule, 
found early oblivion. 



RANDOM FLASHES 


65 

such a rule. Any school board, that enforces it, should 
have a day set apart for public prayer, that light may 
dawn within their narrow minds,so that they may awake 
at least to a decent realization of their position. Men 
who control a large business that employ a great many 
laborers, find that laborers who are married and have 
charge of families, do their work much better and can 
be depended upon farther, than unmarried help. So 
much so that many corporations at their own expense 
build homes close by tbeir places of business and furnish 
them almost gratuitously for their help. Their business 
experience teaches them that this system pays. That it 
is profitable. They always have experienced help. In 
like manner, our district schools in the country should 
provide a home for their teachers. This will insure 
to that profession the wisdom and counsel of age 
abetted by lcng experience. Whoever objects to this 
should first ask himself, if it looks humane to see most 
of our country teachers,right after their laborious term is 
ended, obliged to tear up as a dismissed and worthless 
employe, and go like a vagrant in search of a new place. 
This will insure ample preparation, for when a person 
knows that he will enter a business, that insures a mod¬ 
est but humble home, and constant employment that lasts 
so long as his services are rightly performed; he will 
be sure to have made good preparation, that the long 
journey may be easy and profitable. It will remove the 
oft uttered, but too true criticism, that our young men 
are merely teaching to get easily into some other busi¬ 
ness as soon as opportune, and our young ladies until 
some fickle Paris comes along to steal them from this 
Idean grove—a bondage which they scorn. Let the 
teacher, who really desires to raise the dignity of his 
profession in rural as well as in high schools, endeavor 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


66 


to bring about this permanency of tenure, and, in hi& 
own individual efforts, conform to it. 

The second consideration of the teacher is his Work. 
The ideal teacher is independent and outside of his pro¬ 
fession, is competent to maintain himself in other fields 
of life, and teaches merely from the innate love he has 
for the work. His soul is of that noble cast, which re¬ 
joices more over the dawning thought awakened in the 
budding mind, than in the winning of wealth, or in the 
gaining of fame's proudest smile. Like Napoleon, he 
sees in the debris of undeveloped genius, the material to 
build an empire or to shatter thrones. He therefore 
lays his plans with scientific precision and carries them 
out in the finest minutia. The scope of his work 
should be to prepare a pupil to meet successfully the 
struggle of life. 

In our county schools we have no system or course of 
study outlined. It is a go as } t ou please method. The 
training of the children is left entirely to the judgment 
of the teacher. He is an intellectual autocrat, and in his 
methods of teaching, and plan of work has absolute 
authority. He has no superior. Of course I speak of 
country schools. Why the State of Missouri has allowed 
the training of so many children to be done in such a 
haphazzard way, I am at a loss to explain. Every other 
institution in the state is better guarded. The Judicial 
system is such that if error is made, there are always- 
higher tribunals to appeal for redress. But the public 
schools in country districts have no higher power to look 
for regulation than the teacher. Each school is a dis¬ 
tinct organization having its own curriculum and meth¬ 
ods, and if the methods are vicious, there is no remedy. 
However there is lately a waking up. Teachers meet¬ 
ings and institutes are agitating the question of methods- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


67 


and course of study in country schools, and before long 
we may expect great results. Country schools should 
have their work arranged in a thorough and uniform sys¬ 
tem, all under the careful superintendance of an exper¬ 
ienced educator. Until these are realized, the effective¬ 
ness of the work, in our country schools, will depend 
on the efforts of the individual teacher. His work 
should be his inspiration. He should, besides the les¬ 
sons of the text book, impart carefully prepared instruc¬ 
tions in government, the principles of sociology and polit¬ 
ical economy. His instructions should ever keep in view 
the result. He should remember that he is the archi¬ 
tect, building the intellectual powers and forces that shall 
in future rule the county. That a generous state haa 
confided to him the beings which shall be her future cit¬ 
izens, and also, that fathers and mothers have consigned 
to his care the ones they hold, in love,dearer than the red 
currents that pulse thorough the portals of their hearts. 
This alone, should make the teacher realize the dignity 
and responsibibity of his work. Thrice base is he, 
who, in this, neglects his duty. No error is so sad as hi& 
to whom is intrusted the care and training of childhood. 
Beware teacher what you impart. A child's mind is a 
blank, its heart is an album upon whose living throb¬ 
bing page may be written whatsoever we desire. If you 
write thereon kindness, gentleness, love, duty, faithful¬ 
ness, honesty, liberality and virtue they will remain 
there in their effaceless beauty forever. A part of the 
teachers work should be to impart carefully prepared 
moral instructions. In this his own life should be a 
text book. No immoral man or woman can be a true 
teacher. No, his work is too holy for hands profane. 
Guided by this idea, the teachers woik may be a pleas¬ 
ant task, a cheering thought amid the varied as peri- 


68 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


ties of life. He may be surely conscious that he is 
doing good. 

The third consideration is the teacher’s Reward. If 
money be the only incentive of the teacher, he will esti¬ 
mate his reward by his salary. The money return for 
his work will guide him in selecting his place. While 
he cannot be severely criticized for this, I believe that 
many of our teachers seek reward of a different charac¬ 
ter. That many estimate their chief reward the good 
they do, and the pleasure they feel in laboring to ad¬ 
vance the cause of humanity. That many of our faith¬ 
ful public school teachers have the true missionary zeal 
and have consecrated their lives to a noble purpose. 
Yes, and many of them, of whom fame never speaks, are 
consecrated heroes, with rich red blood in their veins, 
and with proud grand souls, who, when Ambition’s luring 
strives to make them leave fair Duty’s path, say in the 
noble words of St. Francis Xavier. 

“Hush you! close the dismal story! 

What to me are tempests wild ? 

Heroes, on their path to glory, 

Mind not pastimes of a child.” 

Such teachers are in my mind the true benefactors of 
mankind. Of course by teachers, you might include all, 
be they ministers, lawyers, doctors, or public school 
teachers, who lead mankind in better ways of life, and 
induce them either by precept or example to be nobler, 
kinder and better. But I refer here to teachers in our 
schools; for, after the home, they have the first counsel to 
impart into the receptive soul of childhood. For this 
reason their responsibility is greatest of all. If their 
labors be faithfully performed, they deserve richest re¬ 
ward. This, alas! in a money sense with many of you 
is a failure. Especially you who teach in the country. 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


69 


My observation makes me say, that the most deserving 
and self-sacrificing people in the land are the young men 
and women who teach in our country schools. But sure¬ 
ly they have other reward, than the meagre salary they 
receive. The proud consciousness of Duty done, in a 
heart noble as that which throbs in the breast of the 
true teacher, is, itsself, sufficient reward. And also to see 
the light of knowledge awaken in the mind of childhood, 
to see goodness and love inscribed by your hand upon 
that blank but beautiful page, is a pleasure, which life 
has none to equal. 

I once read a legend of a true teacher. It is a legend 
but doubtless true. That teacher was a saint. But 
there are still saints today, although no pompous rites 
decree their names in the Calendar. But this was a 
teacher saint. His name, Aidan. Early in life he 
had sinned deeply. Afterwards regretting his fault he 
imposed upon himself, as punishment, voluntary exile. 
He would leave his native land—never to return. This 
almost broke his heart. Of all earth it was what he 
loved most. His young fervent heart, clinging with in¬ 
tense fervor to his old home and friends, allmost burst 
when the hour of his departure came. But locking up 
his grief, and firm resolved and faithful to fulfill his 
vow, he left his dear old home with the hope:— 

“That if God could use a broken heart, 

Crushed by the hand of woe 

His humble soul would bravely strive 

To make a heaven where he’d go.” 

But he did not seek a county rich with the glories of 
civilization and enlightenment. He went to a lone, rocky 
Island in the North Sea called, ‘ ‘Iona. ” There where the 
Northern blasts dashed the frothing spray against that 
bleak and desolate crag, he took up his abode. The 


70 


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Island was inhabited by shepherds. Poor destitute 
creatures, subsisting mainly on their flocks. Among 
them Aidan came. He had previously lived in splendor 
and wealth, yet he here resolved to live and die in pov¬ 
erty, to atone for his fault. The shepherds, in answer to 
his request to be allowed to live among them, gave him 
a few sheep, and instructed him to care for a herd. He 
learned their ways and won the hearts of the shepherds 
by his kindness in instructing them and their children 
in the knowledge of the world. He taught them daily, 
either alone on the cliff overarching the sea, or in their 
huts on the rocky hillside, hard by the fold where the 
flocks found shelter from the howling storm. By and 
by his fame spread throughout the Island. All were 
eager to learn at the feet of this great teacher. Soon 
from neighboring Islands they came. The shepherds, in 
their rude way, built for him a small house of stone 
which he used as a school room. Soon his fame spread 
from the neighboring Islands throughout Europe. 
From every civilized land came ardent students to sit at 
the feet of this wonderful teacher of Iona. He built 
there a school that was famed throughout the world. 
When his pupils had finished the course, he sent them 
to other lands to instruct and found schools as he had 
done among the bleak desolate cliffs of Iona. Aidan 
died at Iona, and there he was buried. But for years 
and years his school maintained its fame as the center 
of learning of the Western world. For many years after 
this school sent forth missionaries to distant lands, and 
so great was their love for their Alma Mater, and the 
great teacher who was its founder, that when at prayer, 
they knelt facing the bleak and rocky Isle, where slept 
the bones of Aidan in “his loved and cherished Iona.” 
And often when those devoted missionaries, weary with 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


71 


toil, and with sandals worn, after vainly seeking shelter 
from the night, were obliged to rest their weary limbs 
on the bleak Northumbrian hills, or “on bed of hether 
in Mercian Moor;” on seeing a star fall to the West, in the 
rapture of faith they would exclaim:—“Tis the soul of 
Aidan coming back again to his loved and cherished 
Iona.” 

Who has not seen, how true this legend? I have seen 
a faithful teacher for years toil and labor in the silent 
river bed of his professional duty. The years came and 
went, and the gray gathered about his tempies. Each 
year he sent forth a class to engage in the battle of life. 
Others came and went. The empty places were filled 
and filled again. At last a day came and the old teach¬ 
er was missed. The toll of bells, the long procession, a 
new mound on the hillside told he had taught his last 
school. There was sincere grief, many tears, but the re¬ 
quiems were silent. Fame failed to note that one of the 
truly great had died. Years after, high in the records 
of fame, 1 listened to the voice of wisdom and eloquence 
from the lips of one of the greatest scholars and states¬ 
men of his time. When asked where he learned his art, 
and what inspiration made him build so nobly in honor 
and integrity, he mentioned the name of this old teacher 
in reverential praise, and said earnestly he owed all to 
him. — “Twas the soul of Aidan coming back again to 
his loved and cherished Iona.” 

We have seen a child starting for the first time to 
school. How timidly hesitating and fearful is his heart. 
His little trembling form enters the school room un¬ 
noticed. Among the crowding children he takes his 
seat lost in bewildered wonder. His big round blue 
eyes have watery moisture standing, like a pregnant 
cloud, behind the lashes. How strange the scene. How 


72 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


fearful!}' lonely be feels. But soon the kind voice of 
bis teacher puts courage in bis fearful heart, and at her 
request be seeks to perform a task. A beautiful white 
sheet of paper is spread before him on the desk. A 
copy written in a big round, beautiful hand is on the top 
line. After much persuasion, and many kind encour¬ 
agements from the teacher, he begins. His trembling 
hand seizes the pen with a death grip, which fashions 
the little chubby hand into an awkward cramp, devoid of 
motion or elasticity. He is so fearful, and so frightened, 
that the task seems impossible. He has no confidence 
in his power, and he can hear his little heart pulsing in 
in his bosom, and fluttering in wild agitation. The blue 
eyes are half blinded in mist. The task is such an 
awful work. This is a crucial hour in a life. An un¬ 
kind word would blast it, and, if the task be given up, a 
scar is placed upon a budding soul, the record of an 
effort that was lost. But the kind teacher is aware of 
the importance of this hour. The sound of her sweet 
cheering voice gives him courage. He writes. Oh 
what an ugly scrawl! How feeble and shaky the hand. 
He compares the scrawl with the beautiful copy. It 
startles him. He is fearful that his teacher will see 
him. He trys to improve the scrawl. In the effort a 
large blot drops on the clean white page. That so 
frightens him that the pendant tears, which hung sus¬ 
pended beneath the trembling lashes, fall beside the blot 
upon the page. His awkward hand attempts to rub 
them off, so that blot and tears and tears and blot 
mingle and soil the page and blur the beautiful 
copy all in a promiscious smear of inky ruin. He is 
overcome. Grief bursts his little heart. The pen falls 
from the trembling hand, a pitious and despairing sob 
breaks forth, telling Oh, too true, how mighty the task 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


73 


of simplest things in the beginning day. But the kind 
teacher understands his grief. She rearranges the soiled 
copy book. Assures him of her aid. Praises that poor 
scrawl which frightened him. Encourages him with 
gentle voice. Then, with her skillful hand guides his, 
till at last, Oh, wonder great! he has writ a line. He 
looks at that, and then at his teacher. A glow of tri¬ 
umph dances in his eyes. He sees how proud she is of 
him. The watery eyes drink back the tears, the soft 
cheek dimples now with wreathes of smiles, the glow of 
victory sets upon that young white brow, and deep with¬ 
in that wondering soul there springs a consciousness of 
power to do. That first line will be remembered. Long 
j T ears after a proud man, wearing all the honors of civic 
distinction, bends to whisper a kind word of love and 
thanks in the deaf ear of an aged woman, whom the love 
of all who know her, vie in the emulation of kindness 
and gentle acts of friendship, to make peaceful the last 
days of her earthly pilgrimage. He mentions many les¬ 
sons and words of truth learned from her in childhood, 
but she remembers not. Then other incidents are re¬ 
called, but all are alike forgotten. In the quiet monot¬ 
ony of her humble life, too many little chubby hands 
were held in hers, until they grew to adolescence day, 
and then past from her care. Sue cannot specially re¬ 
member one. At last a word, — “That first line!’’ This 
brings the color to her cheek, the dim old eyes in kind¬ 
ness glow, a look of recognition lights up the wrinkles 
on her face, her palsied hand reaches back and from a 
shelf takes up an old scrap book with dusty lids and 
yellowed leaves, and turns and opens, and there upon a 
page,pasted with care,is “that first line;”—above is the 
well rounded copy, below the stain of blot and tear, be¬ 
tween, the awkward scrawl, all plain recalls the burden 


74 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


of an infant heart at its first heavy task, and the tender 
love of teacher and her pride to first direct a little soul 
to gain its first great victory in life. The strong, proud 
man is overcome. A generous compunction is awaken¬ 
ed in his soul. The long ago comes rushing back, and 
knocks upon the portals of dead memories, sealed by the 
drifted years. He realizes the love and devotion of that 
faithful teacher to her charge. He feels abashed, that 
he so long recked lightly that devotion and that love. 
He feels a weight upon his heart, a debt of gratitude 
that cannot be paid, and the tears again come back to 
those same eyes that once dropped tears upon that snow- 
white page. With heart overflowing, he wishes now he 
could bestow a world as a poor reward for that devoted 
teachers work and love. “Twas the soul of Aidan com¬ 
ing back again to his loved and cherished Iona.” 

In conclusion, let me say, this legend is not a myth. 
Those saints of old are only so called, because they 
labored well, labored unselfishly and unceasingly for hu¬ 
manity. The good of humanity they viewed as their 
chief reward. They won the Aureoles that adorn their 
brows. None would say, while gazing on their faces, as 
pictured by some master hand, in marble statue, or on 
the canvass dark on old cathedrall walls, that all their 
praise is undeserved. The saints of old were teachers. 
The odor of sanctity in which they lived and died, was 
but that mysterious magnetism, which draws all men to 
those whose hearts overflow with kindness, and whose 
souls dream long, and yearn in dreams, to lead poor 
feeble man up to a nobler and a better state, and leave 
him at the dawning of a new and happier day. Noble 
ambition! Heroic souls! Such dream itself is fit re¬ 
ward for all the weary labors of a life. Can we not 
drink deep of that grand thought? The reward at least 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


75 


is certain. Who thus toils, builds monument imperish¬ 
able. He builds in the land, where the teeth of Time 
gnaw not, and the gaunt fingers of Decay dare not 
stain the blooming wreath of immortality. He 
builds in the regions of the mind,—that wondrous 
land of mystery and doubt, whose temples are not made 
with hands;—temples whose lofty domes are robed in 
beauty, whose garnished walls portray the resplendent 
glories of the painters art, and whose altars are adorned 
with the fair chaplets of roses, gathered on the flowery 
banks of memory old. In this glorious land you are 
architects building temples, and priests, offering the 
oblations of your weary toil and labors upon the altars of 
humanity and love. Be not cast down. Go on. Falter 
not. If you deem yourself as not receiving adequate re¬ 
compense, care not. In future years, a loving people, 
made better by your lives, will not fail to note, when 
falls a star of light down from the starflecked sky, into 
every abysmal region of Ignorance and wrong. They 
will recall the origin of the beam. Its silvery path they 
will trace back upon the star-paved sky of Intellectual 
growth, and near its fountains ‘ ‘where the angels wait’ ’ 
the silvery scroll shall chronicle your names. Then 
shall the inspiration of your lives be known. All will 
say “ye labored not in vain.” “Tis the soul of Aidan 
coming back again to his loved and cherished Iona.” 



<£bucatton Ctgriculture. 

Read before the State Board of Agriculture at its meeting 
at Maryville, Mo., October 20, 1890. 


You’re starting, my boy, on life’s journey, 
Along the grand highway of life; 
You’ll meet with a thousand temptations; 
Each city with evil is rife, 

The bankers and brokers are wealthy; 

They take in their thousands or more; 
But ah! there is gold on the farm, boy, 
Don’t be in a hurry to go. 


Anonymous. 











EDUCATION # AGRICULTURE. 


Education, as understood, is, at present, considered 
apart from any physical results. To fill the brain with 
facts, with theories or assumptions is about all we at¬ 
tempt. Results we expect, but while the instructions 
are imparted thej r are not considered. Their coming is 
a matter of chance, a problem of probabilities, like 
“bread thrown upon the water'’ at the mercy of the 
drifting tides. But the expenditure required to main¬ 
tain our schools is no matter of chance. The State of 
Missouri spends annually over $5,000,000 in the work of 
Education. Looking at this as a business proposition— 
and no business venture is made without a keen eye to 
results—we might ask, what is produced by this vast 
expenditure? 

Has it added to the material comfort of the people? 
Has it in any way increased the food supply, produced 
increased happiness or dissipated misery? Has it made 
the homes of the people happier or more beautiful? 
Has it helped in any way to develope in the rising gen¬ 
eration a sturdier, more industrious, thriftier or more 
honest type of citizenship than that which is now pass¬ 
ing off the stage? Has it inspired a stronger love for 
home life, or for the useful trades, or the necessary vo¬ 
cations? Not to any flattering extent. The curricula 
of our common schools does not extend farther than 
teaching our pupils Penmanship, Reading, Arithmetic, 
the fundamental facts of United States History, Civil 



80 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


Government, English Grammar, Physiology and Descrip¬ 
tive Geography. 

And in these the work is often without system and 
superficial. But granting to it system and thorough¬ 
ness, what is the pupil prepared to do when he has com¬ 
pleted it? What vocation in life is he prepared to en¬ 
ter? Except the acquirement of a few mathematical 
principles, grammatical rules, a stiff, scrawling ehirog- 
raphy and a number of historical dates, what else has he 
learned by his stay in the common schools? Has the 
instruction given therein been to any extent a practical 
preparation for life? All that the pupil has acquired by 
his five or six years’ application in our country schools 
is the knowledge of facts contained in books—text 
books, foolish conglomerations of abstractions, with no 
practical bearing upon the problems or exigencies of 
every-day life. 

But this book lore, that he has acquired, is to a great 
extent worthless, in beginning the study of Grammar, 
he was told that “English Grammar teaches how to 
speak and write the English Language correctly.” But 
has he learned that from this study? Does he even know 
what the term “English Language” means? Does he 
know of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Spenser, Gold¬ 
smith, Burke or Macaulay? Has he learned aught of 
the Philosophy of History or biography? Does he know 
an j thing of contemporaneous literature or events? Has 
he even been required to read intelligibly one work in 
literature, history or science outside of the dull text¬ 
books of the course? Has any taste for good literature 
or ability to write or compose good English been im¬ 
parted? In most cases not even a suggestion. The 
greater number of the pupils of our country schools 
have never read a single English classic, and at the same 


RANDOM FLASHES 


81 


criticism might apply to the teachers. Their minds have 
never been led to wander through the blissful land of 
treasured thought, where the mighty of mankind labor- 
ed, where, under the influence of that light that “ne’er 
was seen on shore or sea,” they wrote down their inspi¬ 
rations and transmitted them to posterity in the unsealed 
treasury of good books. Not even a taste for such has 
been imparted; so from a stand-point of culture, as well 
as practical utility, the instruction given has been to a 
great extent a failure. 

But this impractical and superficial instruction im¬ 
parted in our common schools is open to another criti¬ 
cism, severest of all. Children thus taught have a false 
notion of life. They seem to despise the nobility of 
labor, and to seek more uncertain means of obtaining a 
livelihood. 

Parents seem never to think of teaching their boys a 
trade or useful vocation, but leave that important step 
in life to chance or self-adoption after they have reached 
maturity. It is a common complaint that all our com¬ 
mon schools qualify pupils to be is teachers, and that of 
a very infeiior grade; and parents in the country, as a 
rule, are disposed to discourage anedu3ation which they 
know will only lead their brightest boys away from their 
homes, make them disinterested in the onerous and 
healthful labors of the farm, and eventually lead them 
to the cit} T , where they seek prosperity by following a 
fleeting will-o’-the-wisp, and where in most cases their 
efforts end in bankruptcy and moral ruin. Can they be 
blamed for this? How many instances have come under 
your observation,where prosperous farmers have become 
bankrupt by backing their inexperienced sons in busi¬ 
ness ventures in the city? Do we not hear from ail 
sides the universal complaint, “farming does not pay;” 


82 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


that farm products have depreciated; that all our young 
men, ambitious of fortune, take no interest in its pur¬ 
suits and are ever watching opportunity to enter other 
vocations? That the fascinations of city life attract 
them, and that they are everywhere leaving? Such is 
indeed too true. They go, despite the true admonition 
of the old ballad: 

You’re starting, my boy, on life’s journey, 

Along the grand highway of life; 

You'll meet with a thousand temptations; 

Each city with evil is rife. 

The bankers and brokers are wealthy; 

They take in their thousands or more; 

But ah! there is gold on the farm, boy, 

Don’t be in a hurry to go! 

Why is this? Simply because the whole influence of 
our education, all its force and example, are against farm 
life. If all the instructions now given in our common 
schools have any purpose at all, that purpose certainly 
lies outside of manual labor or work on the farm. 

That purpose lies in the soft-handed professions or in 
the trumped-up quackisms of fashion. All the instruc¬ 
tions given in our common schools during the last twen¬ 
ty years have not produced one good farmer or mechan¬ 
ic The good farmers and mechanics have been produc ed 
by instruction and influences outside the school-room 
Nor can our schools claim the honors of invention. All 
inventors come from the bench, farm or shop, and most 
of them, in what is commonly termed education, are 
A'ery lacking. All that our schools are successfully pro¬ 
ducing are lawyers, doctors, teachers, book-keepers, 
agents, clerks, accountants, type writers and cultured 
loafers. This vill always be, so as long as we educate 
the boys and girls away from the home, instead of back 
to it. Instead of teaching the boys and girls to return, 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


83 


when they have completed their work in the schools, to 
their old home and spread the sunshine of their acquired 
culture among its simple and cherished inmates, and its 
benefits in beautifiying the surroundings, making its- 
rooms more ample and better ventilated, its walks more reg¬ 
ular, its lawns lovelier, its fields more fertile, its orchards 
and gardens more productive, we teach them by the 
strongest incentives to seek a field of effort in some of 
the callings just named. 

Now, if those callings are of greater utility to a state 
than that vocation which furnishes the entire food sup¬ 
ply of its people, our present theory of education is cor¬ 
rect, and the State is justified in making the vast expen¬ 
diture it does to maintain it. But if such is not true, 
our theory is all wrong and should be corrected. 

This brings me to my subject—Education and Agri¬ 
culture. I maintain that it is the duty of a State to pro : 
vide the means of a sound, practical elementary educa¬ 
tion for all its people, but that education should have a 
special and direct application to that vocation in life which 
the vast majority of its citizens must of necessity follow. 
Applying this principle to modern education, we find 
that the reverse is true. About 1-300 of the population 
of the State are teachers. Yet, for their professional 
education, the State maintains four normal schools and 
and one University, which is only a normal school of 
high order, and also the hundreds of high schools 
throughout the State. About 1-1000 of the entire pop¬ 
ulation of the State are lawyers, yet the State maintains 
a college of law for their benefit, and other colleges 
maintained by other means are opened for students, 
while every law office is, in a certain sense, a law school. 

In medicine likewise the State has made ample pro¬ 
vision for students. But in agriculture, the vocation 


84 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


that two-thirds of the people of the State are engaged as 
a means of livelihood, the State maintains only one 
school, a school that is isolated, unknown to fully two- 
thirds of the people of the State, that has had to contend 
with opposition and jealousy from every hand, that on 
account of its being connected with a school of the high¬ 
est grade in the State, is absorbed by it, and ignored by 
the students, that has had in its entire work of more 
than a dozen year3 scarcely a dozen graduates, not one 
of whom, so far as I have heard, has become a farmer. 
This fact, used by its enemies to influence the cupidity 
of a parsimonious legislature, had its effect. Whatever 
appropiiations, that it demanded, were grudgingly given. 
The results of its labors were under-estimated, and its 
purposes held in contempt. Its defenders met the com¬ 
mon fate awarded to reformers through all times, and 
the trite lines of Goethe to their case fits exactly: 

“Who for humanity have wrong defied, 

Have e’er on crosses or on scaffolds died.” 

Agricultural Education is a new idea, but in full har¬ 
mony with the fundamental principle of civilization, viz , 
the elevation of the laboring class. The nations of an¬ 
tiquity built their civilization upon the degeadation of 
labor. The tillers of the soil were slaves. This condi¬ 
tion held sway through the dark night of feudalism, 
and, down to a very recent period in the Old World, the 
vast majority of the tillers of the soil were mere serfs or 
tenants at will. The masses were ground down by op¬ 
pressive terms, so as to preclude all efficient cultivation. 
Sunk in the grossest ignorance, groveling in superstition, 
their law the will or caprice of their landlord, the peo¬ 
ple had neither means nor will to improve their holdings 
or methods. Only the crudest instruments were used. 
Iron plows were not used till 1731. A society of caste, 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


85 


feeding upon extortion, struggled hard to maintain its su¬ 
premacy and perpetuate the serfdom it had imposed up¬ 
on Agriculture. 

But the discover}’ of America, opened to the world a 
vast unbounded field of virgin prairie, forests, groves, 
hills and mountains, with the richest soil, free of tenure, 
marked a new epoch in the agricultural progress of the 
w’orld. The hardy pioneers, who braved the ocean, would 
brook no interference with their holdings. Among them 
was no caste; they were the rulers of their primitive set¬ 
tlement, as well as the tillers of the soil. This gave a 
new dignity to labor. 

But, as population increased, the scions of aristocracy 
began to diffuse its principles; though not successful, 
still the sentiment was covertly believed and taught, 
that the hand that holds the plow, or drives the plane is 
not as honorable as the hand that has never grown horny 
from the blistering sunbeams and the friction of 
manual toil. To this class belong those who oppose the 
efforts of Agricultural Education. But they are linked 
to a dyiDg barbarism that is now throwing its last shafts 
at the sun of an endless progress, and we need not fear 
their power. All we need as educators, as citizens, as 
patriots, is to be bold; to say boldly to the world that 
the principles of Scientific Agriculture shall be taught in 
our State, not only in one college, but in many—not on¬ 
ly in many, but in every country school in our beloved 
commonwealth. It should not only be taught theoretic¬ 
ally, but also practically by scientific experiments. Of 
course the method of putting this into practice is a great 
problem, without precedent, perhaps, in the history of 
the world. But this grand nineteenth century civiliza¬ 
tion is without precedent, so it is not necessary to 
argue precedent in behalf of an enterprise whose object 


•86 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


tends toGthe financial, as well as, moral improvement of 
over two-thirds of the people. 

I maintain that the principles of Sscientific Agriculture 
should be an important part of our educational work, and 
taught in every country school in the land. It should 
be incorporated in the course. Many methods might be 
suggested, but I will offer the following: First, by 
text-books; in every country school there should be 
taught the principles and facts of Agricultural Chemistry. 
These principles should be engrafted in a text-book, not 
too elaborate, but simple, free from puzzling technicali¬ 
ties, and elementary in design. I know of no notable 
work of this character, but one could easily be prepared 
and made a part of the course of study. Its suggestion 
is recommended by reason. “The object of agriculture 
is to develop from seed and soil the largest possible val¬ 
ue of useful plants and useful animals at the smallest 
cost.” Nothing is more reasonable than that the farmer 
should understand the nature of those materials which 
build up his crop. He should know whence those ma¬ 
terials are to be drawn, what ones are provided by na¬ 
ture, and what by his own efforts. He should know 
how to work in harmony with nature in the placing of 
those materials so as to produce the most profitable re¬ 
sults. The work should briefly explain the composition 
of animal and vegetable tissue, the important organic 
matters of our staple field crops, the principles of fertil¬ 
ization and crop rotation. These principles need not be 
stated with lengthy demonstration or elaborate experi¬ 
ments. Simplicity should be the rule. The deductions 
derived from costly experiment at the experiment sta¬ 
tions might be stated. 

The rules for planting, sowing or reaping that have 
been proven by ages of experience should form a chap- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


87 


ter. A work in Entomology should also be in the course. 
In the last report of the State Board of Agriculture such 
a work is suggested. The structure of insects and their 
classifications are there clearly and logically outlined. 
However, unless it is taught as a text-book, it is useless 
to expect any flatteriDg results. The number among 
practical farmers who will read an article like that, brist¬ 
ling all through with Latin terms, is few. It should be 
taught in every school where the insects themselves can 
be studied. It should treat fully the subject of injurous 
insects, and how to withstand their ravages. 

In a paper from Prof. Purinton, of the Missouri Uni¬ 
versity, published in same report, it is shown that the 
farmer and fruit-grower should possess a thorough and 
accurate knowledge of all the insect pests liable to prey 
upon his crop, as well as a knowledge of the best avail¬ 
able means of their repression. The necessity is shown 
from a financial stand-point. But I maintain, that from 
a stand point of culture, it would be fully as profitable as 
the deformities and jimcrack diagrams whereby most of 
our teachers endeavor to impart to their pupils a know¬ 
ledge of English and of Grammar. 

These two studies (Agricultural, Chemistry and the 
Elements of Entomology), Horticulture, Domestic Econo¬ 
my and the three B’s, would in my judgment be an ad¬ 
equate and practical course of study for our country 
schools. But how to secure it? Teachers would not 
teach these studies? The purpose of my treatise is 
merely suggestive. It in no sense partakes of an exec¬ 
utive nature. Teachers would not teach Physiology till 
the law required it, but since the law made it compul¬ 
sory, the teachers have prepared themselves in that sub¬ 
ject, and it is now taught with more or less effectiveness 
in all our country schools. 


88 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


But in this I would leave it to no uncertain means of 
execution. Having revealed Delphos, I would essay 
Olympus. Laws I would modify, and qualifications re¬ 
quire until I was sure that every pupil in the State 
would have an opportunity to learn how beautiful is the 
home of his childhood, how lovely its green fields, how 
helpful its fragrant boughs, how enchanting the song of 
birds and low of cattle, how endearing the noble sim¬ 
plicity of country folk, how noble that brow from which 
the blinding sweat-drops fall upon the harvest sheaf, 
and that bends in humble adoration before its God by 
the family altar of the Country Home. 

I would make no doubtful effort. The State Board of 
Agriculture, with the State Superintendent of Schools, 
should jointly control the public schools of the State. 
They should be largely industrial schools. In cities, in 
the intermediate grades, the principles of the various 
trades should be practically taught. This department 
should be under the superintendence of a practical me¬ 
chanic. In the country schools, in like manner, the 
principles of Agriculture and Gardening should be prac¬ 
tically taught. 

It is difficult to give a just description of the average 
country school-house. It is generally a square box 
frame with no ornaments whatever, and severely lacking 
in the graces of Architecture. Of such there are over 
f 0,000 in the State. The}' stand alone generally on a 
square plot of ground, dreary and desolate for the great¬ 
er part of the year. Wild weeds grow around the door, 
the fences are dilapidated, *and in the fall, when school 
opens, the vegetation that has grown rank during the 
summer is rotting around, the water in the well is foul 
with organic matter, and the out-houses are out of re- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


89 


pair. The furniture of the room is out of date, cob¬ 
webs are on the walls and window lights are broken. 

Such are the surroundings, that greet the earnest coun¬ 
try teacher at the beginning of his labor. And in such 
a den of bunglesome architecture and neglect, our coun¬ 
try boys and girls must lisp the rudiments of an educa¬ 
tion. No wonder country homes are not more beautiful, 
no wonder the boys and girls are fascinated by the taste¬ 
ful decorations of the city, and imagine the shimmering 
gewgaws of art, more truly beautiful, than the waving 
fields of golden grain and nature’s shadowy pathway 
through leafy grove. Is it surprising that our country 
boys and girls should be somewhat rude, educated in 
such a rude habitation? Yet in such a place they spend 
the springtime of their lives. Common sense and pro¬ 
gress should dictate that the scenery, architecture, fur¬ 
niture and environments within and about the school 
premises should be the most pleasant and enticing that 
is possible. There should be flowers along the walk and 
beautiful trees in the yard to furnish shade. 

The observance of Arbor Day, so energetically advo¬ 
cated by the present Slate Superintendent*, has caused a 
great number of trees to be planted in many school- 
yards throughout the State; but the trees, after being 
planted, are generally neglected; the yards are not mown 
during the summer, but overgrown with rank weeds and 
other vegetation; hence there are few beautiful school- 
yards among the country districtf of the State. 

It is clearly apparent that there is a need of constant 
watchfulness to keep in proper repair the school premi¬ 
ses, and in country schools to make the instruction prac¬ 
tically applicable to the state of life in which the pupils 
are raised, and in which the vast majority must abide. 


♦Prof. W. E, Coreman. 



90 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


Scientific instruction, backed by experiment, should 
be given in Agriculture. Therefore I would recommend 
the passage of a law allowing any district, wherein a 
majority of its voters desired, the privilege of purchas¬ 
ing, besides the school site, enough ground, not to ex¬ 
ceed a few acres, but ample enough for a large garden 
with walks and flower-beds, to be nsed as an agricultur¬ 
al experiment station, and to be under the control of the 
State Board of Agriculture. Upon this a neat cottage 
should be erected, in which the teacher of the district 
should live; this should be the teacher’s permanent 
home. A small rent for this might be charged, or al¬ 
lowance made in-reduction of salary for the house being 
furnished. The teacher should permanently reside at 
the school-house, and the property should be under his 
Care. 

The garden should be laid out per specifications fur¬ 
nished by the Agricultural Department, and the seed al¬ 
so furnished should be planted as indicated. The tend¬ 
ing of the garden should be under the teacher’s control, 
he to be allowed out of the products reasonable wages 
for his time. One hour each day during the summer 
season, the school should be required to spend in the 
garden. The names of plants, the varieties of flowers, 
should be studied and illustrated by their growth. 
Competition could be used to good purpose by allowing 
each pupil, who excels, a flower-bed of his own to culti¬ 
vate. 

Every experiment directed by the Agricultural De¬ 
partment should be illustrated to the school, and the 
teacher required to make a careful report of success and 
results of same. The board should furnish the teachers 
all necessary instruments to carry out their experiments. 
Composition of the soil should be studied from an analy- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


91 


tic standpoint, and the facts learned in the text-book on 
Agricultural Chemistry, illustrated;—injurous insects 
studied and the means of preventing their ravages, as 
indicated in the study of Entomology, put into opera¬ 
tion. The various ingredients of fertilization should be 
studied; the substances that form the organic matter of 
plants explained. The amyloids, .or compounds of car¬ 
bon, hydrogen and oxygen, which form the hard pulp 
of root, fibers and fruit. Likewise the fats, the organic 
acids, albuminoids, phosphates and various other ele¬ 
ments, which enter into the plant, should be studied. 
The pupils should be taught what soils are supplied with 
all or part of these elements and what are deficient. 
They should also learn what fertilization agencies will 
supply these deficiencies. 

The teacher’s home, though not costly, should be 
neatly and artistically built, and the State Board of Ag¬ 
riculture should be required to furnish the teacher plans 
by which he can instruct his pupils in the principles of 
Modern Architecture, and the best methods of construct¬ 
ing a neat, convenient, healthy country home. In the 
same manner the construction of barns, paying always 
due respect to expense and utility, should be taught. 
The best and cheapest materials for building and the 
most convenient implements of husbandry and farm ma¬ 
chinery should be illustrated. 

The same methods, plans, instructions and outlines 
used on the State Agricultural college farm, should be 
used so far as possible in every district. The teacher 
should be required to keep the school-yard beautifully 
adorned with flower-beds—and such being his home, he 
would feel a personal interest in doing so—to teach the 
names of the flowers and their botanical classifications, 
and, if he possesses any art, his school will in a short 


92 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


time be a little band of naturalists, each one of whom 
can in a moment open the great book of Nature, and 
from the simplest bud that blooms, read a story as charm¬ 
ing as the shy tints of the blue-bell, or as pathetic as the 
love-lorn legend of Hyacinthus. Botany studied in this 
way will be remembered. A teacher might for months 
describe the common golden-rod, and it is doubtful if 
one of his pupils would recognize it at sight. But let 
him take his pupils to the garden or fields, and without 
any explanation point out the flower, and the pupils will 
never forget it. The pupils, knowing plants, and learn¬ 
ing their cultivation as an art deserving the attention of 
the scholar, occupying the assiduous care of the teacher, 
will love them, and the aesthetic part of their nature 
thus developed will materialize in blossoms of beauty 
around their old home. They will see that the culture 
of plants is a study more instructive and interesting than 
Algebra, and many pupils, whose mind are too practical 
to be warped into bookish codes, will in such study find 
their true element. They will be interested in plant 
growth, and not only cultivate them from a financial, but 
also from an aesthetic view, as a means of culture. 
They will love to plant a tree by the old home and 
school-house to be remembered by. They will esteem 
it a fitting monument, more delicately wrought in its 
wreathed foliage than the sculptor’s lines on marble, 
and feel that Spenser was a true poet when he praised 
much— 

“The trees so straight and hy, 

The sayling Pine; the Cedar proud and tall, 

The vine-propp Elme; the Poplar never dry; 

The builder Oake, sole king of forests all; 

The Asplne good for staves; the Cypressefunerall; 

The Laurell, meed of mightie Conquerours 
And Poets sage; the Eirre that weepeth still; 




RANDOM FLASHES. 


93 


The Willow, worne of forlorne Paramours; 

The Eugh, obedient to the benders will; 

The Birch for shaftes; the Sallow for the mill; 

The Mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound; 

The war-like Beech; the Ash for nothing ill, 

The fruitfull Olive; and the Platane round; 

The carver Holme; the Maple seeldom inward sound.” 

I have thus submitted these few suggestions, and 
know full well that a thousand objections might be 
made against them. Yet I believe they are in every 
sense reasonable. The question of expense would De the 
greatest objection. But the entire furnishing, including 
teacher’s house, would not exceed at a liberal estimate 
$1,000. The average district of the State is worth over 
$50,000, and on such a valuation the item of expense 
would not be oppressive. Many current expenses now 
incurred by the district in unnecessary repairs would be 
avoided, the school premises being the teacher’s home, 
and it being his duty to take care of the property. 

But the advantages of such a system of instruction 
would be manifold. The profession of teaching would 
then be a calling worthy of the best talent. Only well 
educated, practical men and women could enter it. And 
promising a home and constant employment would in¬ 
duce the best talent to prepare for teaching. Our teach¬ 
ers would then be a class in every respect leaders. Old 
age would honor its ranks—not as now a set of boys and 
girls in the business merely as a makeshift till fortune or 
marriage leads them elsewhere. 

Agriculture being required in the schools, our teach¬ 
ers would in a short while prepare themselves in that re¬ 
spect. Agricultural colleges would spring up in every 
county or congressinal district, where there now is but 
one in the whole State, and that begging for students. 
Unless there is a demand in the schools for teachers 


94 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


trained in Scientific Agriculture, the State might as well 
withhold its appropriation, for students will not pursue 
these studies. Agriculture carefully taught in all the 
schools will make the farmers of the State the thriftiest 
class of people known. Farming would develop into a 
grand profession, which a scholar would take pride in 
pursuing. It would increase the wealth of the State. 
It would add an aesthetic charm to country life, and 
make the country home a paradise. It would be educat¬ 
ing our boys and girls for their homes instead of away 
from them. The boys and girls leaving school would be 
worth more as citizens to the State. It would exalt and 
dignify labor, the true principle of civilization and pro¬ 
gress. It would educate the masses of the people for 
the vocation in life which the} 7 must necessarily follow, 
and would thus be carrying out the true definition of a 
school given by Pestalozzi: “A school should really 
stand in the closest connection with the life of the home, 
instead of as now in strong contradiction to it.” 

The teaching of practical Agriculture in every district 
school in the land, dictated by common sense, is also 
fast becoming an absolute necessity. The virgin soil 
which has for years responded to the efforts of the hus¬ 
bandman with luxuriant crops, is in some places begin¬ 
ning to lose fertility. Nature, unaided by Science, will 
not meet the demands made upon her, and at present 
the demands are on the rise. Population is filling up— 
during the last century has increased from 3,000,000 to 
65,000,000 people. If such a ratio continues during the 
next century, what may we expect? Over 1,000,000,000. 
The thought is appalling. The Visigoths of Alaric and 
the Huns of Attila, who poured down from their north¬ 
ern homes and overwhelmed Rome, were nothing com¬ 
pared with this. 


RANDOM FLASHES 


95 




But these are not coming armed with brand, sword 
and fire to plunder, rob and destroy. They are coming 
welcomed by life’s gladdest smile, by the firesides, into 
the homes of our people. 

Think what a mighty problem stands before us! 
Think what poverty and suffering await the unborn gen¬ 
erations if we are not far-seeing and prepare for their 
coming! 

Think to what a high state of culture we must bring 
our fields to furnish food for such a dense population! 

Hence, in behalf of humanity, as well as sound reason 
and common sense, I am in favor of the science of Agri¬ 
culture being a compulsory study in our country 
schools. 









IDfyat Sfyoulb be Caugfyt 

Boyhood and ©irlhood at §Qhool? 

Written in July, 1890, part of the same read at Avalon, Mo., be¬ 
fore a Teacher’s Institute, Dec. 15, 1890. 


Lead, kindly light; amid the encircling gloom, 
Lead thou me on; 

The night is dark and I am far from home, 

Lead thou me on. 

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene, one step enough for me. 

—Cardinal Newman. 
























jy. 

































BOYHOOD and GIRLHOOD 
-A_T SCHOOL. 


It was long ago. John, a lad of perhaps seven years, 
had gotten up early. This was to be his first day at 
school. The family were astir with more than usual ac¬ 
tivity. There was a strangeness, and an air of interest 
in everything about the old farm-house. The low of cat¬ 
tle was more plaintive, the warbling song bird’s notes 
were in slower cadence, and the very sunbeams, as they 
stooped to kiss the dew-moist grass and autumnal leaves, 
had a mellow picturesqueness, as when nature shadows 
in gentle premonitions the approaching storm. But no 
storm was to be. The vermillioned horizon marked the 
first days of Indian Summer. The orchards were laden- 
ed with ripened fruit. Plenty, peace and contentment 
were pictured everywhere. 

Yet, there was one event,—an epoch in a life, for the 
first time, John was to go to school. How much inter, 
est was there in his departure! Ere he had awakened 
his mother was at his side. Old Grandmother was un¬ 
usually pleasant. She contemplated with pride the 
possibilities of John in life, and pictured them in her 
quaint old-fashioned way with all exuberance possible. 
John’s father lingered long after breakfast, and talked of 
one thing and then of another in his curt indifferent 
way. It was noticed, however, that his voice had a 
peculiar softness, especially to his wife, it was as tender 
and kind as his rugged nature could assume. “John 



100 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


will be a good boy, wife, ’ ’ says he, ‘ ‘and in those days a 
boy must be educated to get along, so don’t be lonesome 
when he is gone. I must now go to work, see that he 
has everything he needs. ” So bidding John ‘ ‘Goodbye, ” 
he departs. John is bundled up. His little booksachel 
is strapped over his shoulder. His dinner basket is in 
his hand. Kissed, caressed, encouraged and praised,off 
he starts strutting proudly like a little soldier. Fond 
eyes follow him as he advances down the road, and a 
mother’s heart heaving and throbbing, breathes with all 
the fervency of her nature a prayer to God, that those 
little feet, now so proudly setting forth on life’s journey, 
may never go astray. 

In another farm-house, this bright Autumn morning is 
a similar scene. Only the object of interest is a little 
girl. She is beautiful. She has seen the roses of five 
summers. Life with its vast hopes and mighty possibil¬ 
ities is yet to her a blank. Her little world has been 
circumscribed by the boundaries of her mother’s garden 
and the old farm }'ard. But Jennie is a bright little 
girl. Her large, round blue eyes and delicate white 
face show a sincere, sensitive nature, quick to perceive, 
but modest, timid and kind. Strange event in her his¬ 
tory. This morning she starts to school. After many 
efforts and encouragement she starts from home, not 
like John with his proud soldierly gait, but hesitatingly 
slow, her blue eyes swimming in tears, and begging her 
mother to go to school with her. When she arrives at 
the school, she sees so many strange faces. She sees 
the rough, rude ways of some. She perceives how un¬ 
noticed she is, who was always such a conspicuous part 
of her home society. This almost breaks her heart. 
She cannot comprehend it. During the day, as she 
stands off by herself, sighing for home, and feeling so lone- 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


101 


ly in the crowd, she sees a little boy, who was so proud 
and assuming in the morning, alone, his big gray eyes 
filled with tears, for he like her sees to his sorrow that 
at school he is not nearly so big a fellow as at home. 
Sympathy brings them together. Their eyes meet. 
For the first time, face to face, eye to eye, smile to 
smile meet, Boyhood and Girlhood at school. 

Boyhood and Girlhood at school! For what purpose? 
Let us keep this question in mind. We know that we, 
like those two children, had our first day at school. 
We yet remember it. In the region of love and reminis¬ 
cent fancy it is bound to each heart in stronger and brighter 
clasps than links of burnished gold. It marks the day when 
our feet, first turned from the old fireside, and starting 
down the lane,—the sky above us, sunlit in gold and'azure, 
the balmy breezes of the South,—perfumed with the .fra¬ 
grance of sweetest flowers, kissing our faces,—the air res¬ 
onant with the song of birds,—the smoky horizon and the 
parting kiss still moist upon each cheek, yet keep in 
memory the day when unthoughtedly each launched 
forth on lifes lorn pilgrimage alone. 

But lor what purpose is all this? Why must child¬ 
hood, in its budding infancy, be separated from the warm 
sunshine of the hearthstone, while yet the cradle song is 
new, and the prattling baby form—dowered with fond 
caress and honeyed kiss, has never yet learned to bear a 
frown? Why must he, in such tender years, enter the 
lists and participate in the struggles and fierce compe¬ 
titions, that attend life’s unrelenting and unending race? 

Man is a child cut adrift upon the great ocean of living 
thought. Surrounding him are the clouds of hate and 
prejudice, the whirlpools of vice and sin, the rocks and 
shoals of ignorance, the fog banks of doubt and irrelig- 
ion, and unpilotted and unguided through all, he must 


102 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


take his starless way alone. To fit him for this journey 
is the purpose of all Education. This is why we have 
thus met “Boyhood and Girlhood” at school. And here 
the question arises,— “What shall each be taught?” 
Shall both be taught to look on life from the same stand¬ 
point and with the same purpose? Shall the instructions 
given John, the manly boy starting so proudly on life, 
be identically the same as Jennie’s with her modest sen¬ 
sitive nature? 

If Education be in any sense a preparation for the 
duties and responsibilities of life, the instruction given 
in our schools should be shaped with special reference 
to those duties and responsibilities. If man and woman 
have each, in the natural course of events, his own pe¬ 
culiar sphere in life, then the instructions given each 
should embrace a thorough outline of their several re¬ 
sponsibilities, so that when both are called upon to as¬ 
sume them they may discharge every obligation to the 
honor of each and the glory of both. Education at its 
present status does not do this. The instructions given 
our boys and girls are identically the same, while every 
department of that instruction is so abstract that in rare in¬ 
stances has it any application to the practical duties of life. 
The Education of to-day in common schools only fits our 
pupils for thre evocations, such as teaching, book-keeping, 
or clerking. Bated with respect to the number of places 
opened for applicants, these vocations rank as the most 
unimportant. Yet, even in our primary schools, the 
branches of study are so taught, as if the students of 
each, were expecting to step from their perusal to the 
counting room, store or schoolroom and there pursue a 
certain vocation in life. To attain a place in such voca¬ 
tions is the prime incentive of Education among parents 
as well as among pupils. 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


103 


So strong is this sentiment, that if an ambitious 
pupil, after leaving school, fail to secure a place of 
this character he or she is lookedupon as a failure. 
This false sentiment, kept alive by the influence of 
an unpractical and unphilosophical Edu-cation, has a 
demoralizing effect. It unfits our pupils for the 
sterner responsibilities of life. They regard the 
soft handed vocations as more respectable, than those, 
which require manual labor. Hence they seek through 
the instrumentality of an Education to escape the sever¬ 
ities of manual toil. Thus we see thousands of boys and 
girls leaving the farm and workshop to attend Normal 
Schools and Business Institutes for a few months, ex- 
. pecting at the close to follow such callings as teaching, 
book-keeping, clerking, as though there were certain 
place for all who apply. They are in every sense of the 
term shirks. Their only motive of attending school is 
by that means to secure an easy job. Hence their Edu¬ 
cation, instead of being a preparatory discipline for the 
severities of life, is to them really a stumbling-block 
should they.fail in the vocations sought, and be forced 
to go back to the farm or workshop from which they 
came. 

The fundamental principle of all Education, should be 
the maintainance and perpetuation of Home life. We 
may reconstruct Society. Old theories may wane. The 
ideals of past centuries may become the rediculous, and 
the Holy of Holies, the Shekinah, whose sacred light 
was forbidden to eyes profane, may yet be regarded as 
a myth. But there is one idea, that comes to us song- 
blest and heart-blest from the remotest past, and will 
ever be revered by all that is noble, virtuous and true, 
it is the idea of “Home.” It is through the agency of 
Home-life that mankind has built up the grand fabric of 


104 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


civilization. The perpetuity of this present civilization 
depends upon the maintainance of this one idea,— 
“Home.” Hence, the whole power of our educational 
forces should be put forth to overcome the incidious in¬ 
fluences, now rapidly gaining sway, that a true standard 
of moral ethics can be maintained, when the “fireside 
altar” is ignored. Our boys should be taught that their 
highest ambition in life should be to one day own 
and maintain a Home. That such an acquirement is 
life’s highest honor and the truest evidence of life’s suc¬ 
cess. The culture of the schools should be regarded as 
only a means for the successful accomplishment of that 
end. And that culture, once acquired, instead of as 
now in most instances unfitting them for the labors and 
duties of their former home, should rather inspire 
them to return to it, and diffuse the benefits of their 
added ability, in making pleasanter and happier the sur¬ 
roundings of the cherished inmates, who on the sunset 
brink of life, may ere long need a manly breast to lean 
upon and a strong right arm that will not fail. And for 
girls, it would be far better, if the Education which is 
now crowding and hurrying them upon the already over¬ 
crowded marts of commercial life, would instead instruct 
them in their higher duties, so that after having been 
nurtured until they have blossomed into womonhocd’s 
grandeur and beauty, “they could by their wise and 
beneficient ministrations make the homes of this land 
the moral bulwarks of a virtuous and honorable nation.” 

But John and Jennie were not so taught. John was 
sent to the old “destrict schule.” He learned to cipher, 
read, write and spell. He was told that the world is 
round, that the sun is bigger than the moon, and that 
an island is a portion of land surrounded by water. 
Everything he learned was by rote, no reason, cause or 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


105 


application was ever suggested. The endlessly repeated 
injunction of bis teacher was “Remember,” but never 
“Think,'’ “Imitate” but never “Do.” He was told to 
study his lessons, for that was what George Washington 
did when he went to school, and as he became President, 
there was every reason in the world to suppose that 
John would attain to the same eminence, provided he 
did likewise. Before John was master of Long Division, 
a very wise teacher was employed in the district. He 
felt Master John’s head and promoted him to Algebra. 
His advance was so marvelous in this, that before the 
school term was out he could repeat the Binomial Theo¬ 
rem. His teacher flattered him, and flis parents, 

“(razed and still their wonder grew, 

That one small head could carry all he knew.” 

He was taught nothing of life. Nothing of the his¬ 
tory of the proud race to which he belonged. Nothing 
of the literature of the noblest language in the world. 
Even the fundamental principles of Orthography, Com¬ 
position and Penmanship were omitted. At school he 
learned nothing of the duties and responsibilities of 
manhood and citizenship. Nothing of honor, purity, 
virtue and truth. Nothing of his duties to home, father 
or mother. Nothing of the obedience due superiors, or 
the respect and courtesy due to old age or the unfortu¬ 
nate in life was ever broached. Yet, in the conceit of 
his teacher and school, he was deemed a fine scholar. 
His Education was like a soft pulpy fungus without stem 
or fibre. In truth he knew nothing, yet his conceit 
pointed to him a President’s chair, because like a parrot 
he knew the Binomial Theorem. 

Before school was out, John received a circular from 
a certain commercial school, wherein it stated, that after 
a six-month course, he would be qualified to fill a place 


106 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


in a bank or store at a salary of $100 per month. The 
circular stated that such places were waiting to be filled 
by students from that school;—that this was an oppor 
tunity of a life-time, and so John thought. He showed 
the paper to his father and his mother, and though the 
former was somewhat skeptic, his mother abetted by the 
ever-accomodating grandmother, prevailed. So it was 
decided to send John to this school. His father mort¬ 
gaged the best team of horses to raise the necessary 
money, and mother and grandmother sewed for two or 
three weeks, prior to John’s departure, to replenish his 
wardrobe. His father bluntly remarked that, “he hoped 
John would do something at school, ” as he noticed, ‘ ‘since 
those Binomials were stirring in his brain he was not 
worth a cent onthe farm.” But here grandmother came 
to John’s relief again, and told him John would more 
than repay them, when earning $100 per month. And 
so he was gone! The world was about him. New 
scenes, new opportunities, new pleasures and new 
hopes. The fireside, the homestall, the green fields, the 
running brooks, the low of cattle, the fragrance of tim¬ 
othy, the waving corn, the old dinnerbell, the family 
altar were all behind him. He was in the midst of 
ceaseless, hurrying life. Cast adrift, who deeming him¬ 
self educated, had not even learned to think. Results 
are soon apparent. John imitates the society about 
him. It was by imitation that he learned the Binom¬ 
ial Theorem. He finds the clothes his mother made 
for him do not fit him quite enough. A tailor is em¬ 
ployed. Few letters ever go home, except calls for more 
money. Before the term was out, another team, and the 
old homestead was mortgaged, conditionally of course, 
for it would all be paid back, when John was earning 
$100 per month. Well, he graduated. He was given a 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


107 


scroll, per se evidence of acquired ability. Brain power 
manufactured by a kind of stuffing process. Stuffed 
and hurried through the common school, hurried and 
stuffed through the college, with the document of his 
acquired fitness, he starts out to find his $100 job. 
This demands another appropriation from his father’s 
drained ex-chequer. But he finds none. He finds 
every place filled. Not at flush wages either. On the 
contrary, most of the places are filled by boys and girls; 
children of wealthy parents, or residents of the city, who 
are there at almost service free, merely to learn the bus¬ 
iness. And the wages paid the best are scarcely ade¬ 
quate to pay for one’s board and clothes. The $100 
places are only attained bv those serving an apprentice¬ 
ship in years, exceeding that of John’s life. A cloud 
has gathered about him. The bubble has burst. He 
finds that a business Education is of little practical 
value outside of the strictly commercial vocations. 
Every place, where he seeks employment, the supply ex- 
ceeds the demand. Disappointment, follows disappoint¬ 
ment. Too proud to return to his old home, and give 
the benefit of his acquired culture to his old father and 
mother, and on account of his inflated idea of self, too 
lazy to work, he drifted from one place to another, at 
one time an auctioneer, and then a book agent, and finally 
a hotel porter. In the meantime the seeds of vice had 
taken root. Bad company and dissipation were playing 
a part in his developing young life. Discouraged by 
failure after failure, his spirit was crushed. That Edu¬ 
cation, which led him from his home, never even hinted 
that he could to the greatest advantage use it there. 
So far his period of Boyhood and Girlhood at school 
was only a shining “Will o’ the Wisp,” a treacherous 
mirage, that led him from home’s sweet Oasis of peace, 


108 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


out upon the parched and barren desert of the world. 

During all this time, his home was desolate. The old 
ancestral roof-tree was in the “sere and yellow leaf.” 
His father was now old. Under the weight of toil and 
sorrow, he aged rapidly. A cloud of gloom was on his 
mother’s face. Her thick luxuriant, dark-flowing hair, 
began to show, through its deeper meshes, streaks of 
gray. Old grandmother had passed to the “far beyond.” 
As the cloud gathered, she received a message, that joy’s 
‘‘silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl broken.” 
So. with her locks of gray, and lingering love of olden 
days, clinging in its beautiful simplicity to the half re- 
membered things of by-gone times, and holding out her 
withered hands to those she loved, with hopes bright star 
above the darkness of the grave, she closed her eyes and 
slept. She spoke of John, but that was all. After her 
death the old home was lonety. Wild weeds grew about 
the yard and orchard. The fences were broken down. 
Everything looked strange, neglected and forlorn. A 
desolate silence prevailed. No voices of children, no 
tripping footfalls, no returning laborers. With increas¬ 
ing poverty and age, John’s father and mother were 
compelled to give up one after another association, till 
at last their world of society was themselves. Alone 
the} r would sit together bj r the still hearthstone in silent, 
fond embrace, pouring over old dreams, recalling scenes, 
when first each learned the “lore of love,” and built 
hope’s pictures on joy’s shadowy vale. Then as the sun 
sank in the west before them, pillowed in its glittering 
sea of gold, the dying day was to them a figure of their 
lives. It was now evening. Life had past its dawn and 
noon, their eyes were fixed upon the “sunset land.” In 
its glory of gold and azure, ’twas so beautiful that a 
peaceful oblivion filled each heart, and looking back 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


109 


over their past life, and in each other’s face, their old 
hearts felt a softening tenderness, stirred by the wand of 
love, and the transient joy gave voice to the familiar 
verse of Burns: 

John Anderson, my Jo, John, 

We clamb the hill thegither; 

And monie a canty day, John, 

We’ve had wi ane anither; 

Now we maun totter down, John, 

But hand in hand we’ll go, 

And sleep thegither at the foot 
John Anderson, my Jo. 

Then poignant memory would come back, and at its pic¬ 
ture would spring up the thought, “where is my wander¬ 
ing boy tonight.” At this a cloud would come, the 
nearing darkness spread its pall, and the worn old farmer 
and his faithful wife, would end the day in tears. 

But Jennie! How with her? She attended the same 
school with John, was taught the same, but not having 
the parrot memory of John, learned nothing. But she 
went through a great number of books. Having an in¬ 
dulgent mother, she was not hurried; she was not hur¬ 
ried in her work, either at school or at home, and so she 
grew up a careless, listless child without a purpose or 
aim in life. Life seemed to her a place for living and 
petting, and by her daily actions she showed her belief. 
She talked of beaux before she knew the multiplication 
tables, and had company before she knew the first principles 
of housekeeping. For a longtime her teacher was of the 
love theorists, who thought it better to rule “by love” 
than fear.* So he allowed the boys and girls to sit to¬ 
gether. John and Jennie occupied the same seat. 
Love did rule. Every “laddie had his lassie” even down 


♦This is no misrepresentation of some of the methods of the teach¬ 
ers in our couutry schools in this county ten or fifteen years ago. 



110 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


to the youngest. At last the directors sent that love 
teacher about his business, and employed in his place a 
believer in common sense and decency, even if accom¬ 
panied by a little fear. But that teacher was by no 
means popular. The first time he reprimanded Miss 
Jennie she pouted, and left school, and her parents over 
indulgent, allowed her to stay out. 

In her home society, however, she did not neglect to 
acquire its sound practical lessons. Her aetive, restless 
nature, would not allow her to remain idle. She learned 
the art of housekeeping. Was a first rate cook. Had 
her neat garden, and flower beds, and in her unassumed 
and uncultured beauty, was the “rose of the rosebud,” 
the sweetest flower of all. Distinguished from other 
girls by her simple manners, and sound practical com¬ 
mon sense, she was also loved by all, for her tender and 
earnest solicitude for the comforts and the happiness 
and well being of her home. Outside its circle she had 
no ambition. In the blush of beautiful womanhood, she 
knew no bond save parental love. Though oft fond 
fancy’s dream, or passion’s heart throb waked a tremor 
in her breast, yet ere the crimson deepened from her 
cheek, or sorrow’s tear,distilled, rolled from its sourc',the 
visioned fabric vanished before the star of filial duty. 
A lass like her some poet has made to say: 

“ The puir old folk at hame, ye mind, 

Are frail and failing sail” 

And weel I ken they’d miss me lad, 

Gin 1 came hame nae mair. 

The grist is out, the times are hard, 

The kine are only three, 

I canna leave the old folk now, 

We’d better bide a wee.” 

Often had the Siren voice of a boasted Education tried 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


Ill 


to lure her to its shrine, by the promises of fame, fash¬ 
ion and independence in the arena of commercial life;— 
but she paid the admonition no heed. She had a wise 
consciousness that in the struggle for life, a true wom¬ 
an’s place is within the domestic circle, and that in the 
ordinary course of events, all other vocations can be but 
transient. Hence, she made her life a practical prepara¬ 
tion for what she regarded its true calling, and looked 
cheerfully, though not impatiently forward to the time, 
when she, like her old mother, would be the central link, 
the bond of union, the loved and cherished wife of some 
manly hearted man, the presiding genius of a peaceful 
and honored home. Thus, while John was preparing for 
the future by means of Binomial Theorems, and the bus¬ 
iness experience, derived from fictitious bargain and sale 
over the counters of a commercial college, in her own 
home, guided by a truer Philosophy, she had better pre¬ 
pared for the duties and responsibilities of life 

Now what was the difference in the Education of these 
two? You will readily see that the Education of neither 
w r as complete. In John’s Education, the disciplinary train¬ 
ing of Home-life was neglected. He sought culture, but 
that culture only prepared him for a vocation in life away 
from his home, and entirel} r out of sympathy with its 
onerous duties and obligations. Had he been rightly 
educated, the acquirement of that culture would have 
been the rigid discipline that makes of the timid recruit 
the invincible soldier. The failure to secure place in one 
vocation would not intimidate him from attempting oth¬ 
ers. And should he have failed in all, that culture,— 
brave and dauntless, would have whispered to him 
of home. He would have returned to that place. 
The brawn of his young arm would have borne the bur¬ 
dens, borne by stiffening limbs. By the old fireside 



112 


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through the long winter evenings, he would have enter¬ 
tained his simple, loving audience with the wonderful 
stories, found in books. Eyes of love would mark his 
goiDg and his coming. Sitting apart, he would have 
often heard his name mentioned in love, and every linea¬ 
ment of his form or features, particularized as the like 
embodiment of two forms, now nearing the grave, but 
once young, hopeful and impulsive a3 he. Such an Ed¬ 
ucation in a modern business sense might not be called 
a success, But it would at least have made one home 
happy, one father and mother bless to the last hour of 
life, the day, that in their home gave birth to the first 
cradle song, and the Education that would produce such 
a result would be by no means a failure. 

Jennie’s Education w'as incomplete, because she learn¬ 
ed nothing outside her home duties and obligations. 
Hence, if fate had reduce l her to the necessity of 
making a livelihood out in the world, she would be beset 
with difficulties, she might not overcome. But of the 
two, her Education was the wiser. And in the natural 
course of events, it was philosophically the best. But 
as our ideas of society are fast drifting from those of 
the past, and as women in the multitudinous rush of 
business and trade, fills so many places of honor and 
trust, a girl’s Education should not iguore the study of 
these advantages, which offer so many opportunities of 
self-advancement. Let us therefore briefly outline the 
elements of a complete Education. 

First, it is A DISCIPLINE. 

In its rigorous severity, and tireless investigations, it 
should so shape the mind that failure to succeed would 
only be the spurring incentive to greater effort. Work 
should De its motto. The pupils should be taught that 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


113 


an Education is not a means of escaping work, but a 
means of producing greater results from work. ADy 
boy or girl, who studies with the idea, that by that means 
they can acquire fortune without hard work, will be dis¬ 
appointed. Whoever in life seeks fortune, and yet shirks 
from severe labor will fail. All success is won by work. 
Work is worship. Shakespeare, Washington, Lincoln, 
Garfield, are only impersonations of human possibilities, 
and what human effort may achieve by honest work. 
Work ennobles man. It writes upon his face the im¬ 
press of manly independence, and gives to the mould of 
breathing clay the stamp and impriat of a God. Every 
man who has made a success in life, worked simply from 
the love of work. The thought of reward is a secondary 
consideration. All loafers keep their minds on the re¬ 
wards of work, and are constantly talking of it, but the 
effort required to attain that reward, they constantly de¬ 
spise. Hence a complete Education will inspire in the 
pupils breast a true love for work. He will regard 
effort put forth by brain and muscle as the probationary 
discipline required to achieve success or signalize a 
name. 

Second: A Complete Education imparts the refine¬ 
ments of Culture. This should be its object. The object 
of an Education, should not be the acquirement of lux¬ 
ury and wealth. Such motives should be secondary. 
The primary aim should be Culture. Emerson says:— ‘ ‘the 
man of culture need not build palaces or mansions to 
dwell in, for lo, they are open on every hand inviting him 
to enter.” Such is true. And that Education, which 
imparts the chaste refinements of a cultured soul, in¬ 
spired by noble ideals and, guided by a stroog sense of 
morality and duty, that has drank from the fountains of 


114 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


thought the grand intellectuality of self-respect, is the 
true Education. 

It will be noted that, while John’s Education was so 
disastrous in its results, Jennie’s Education, though not 
complete, was by no means a failure. The philosophy 
of this present age might account for this by the too 
common statement, that naturally boys are more prone 
to do wrong than girls. That their nature is coarser. 
That woman’s nature is more sensitive, emotional and 
tender, directing her in the paths of religion, and love, 
while the’ “lords of creation” ever camp on the confines 
of the “broad way, which leads to destruction.” Before 
I take issue with this principle, I am willing to second 
•every encomium that has been pronounced upon the 
name of woman. Especially, American woman. We 
have the grandest, purest, most intellectual, and perfect¬ 
ly developed type of womanhood in the world. The 
glory of America, is not in her armies, her victories or 
armaments of war, not in her chieftans, not in her pos¬ 
sessions of territory, not in her mines, products and vast 
resources, no it is rather in her women, Christian wom¬ 
en, who living in the light of her peaceful institutions, 
counteract the incidious assaults of vice and sin, who 
“bear the armor of virtue and religion,’’ and who by the 
fireside altar imparts the frankincense of tur virtue and 
purity, contented, if only she knows her efforts are not 
slighted, asking no praise if only her sons for whom she 
has put forth so much self sacrifice, be worth} 7, members 
and honored citizens in this land of the truest women 
and bravest men. Americans of all peoples, have cause 
to say: 

“blessing on the hand of women, 

Fathers, sons, and daughters cry, 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


115 


And the sacred song is mingled 
With the worship of the sky;— 

Mingled where no tempest darkens, 

Rainbows ever more are curled, 

For the hand that rocks the cradle, 

Is the hand that rules the world.” 

But notwithstanding this, I assert that the sentiment 
of honor, refinement, virtue, morality and dut} T is, natur¬ 
ally, not a whit stronger in woman than in man. In a 
state of nature they stand on the same plane. The exper¬ 
ience of History, through all the ages, asserts this. 
Woman was barbarian, when man was. Side by side 
down the ages, they have advanced toward the goal of 
civilization, wearing equal laurels in the struggle for 
virtue, honor and duty. Hence, if there now exists any 
difference in these respects between the sexes, it is whol¬ 
ly due to Education. That there is a difference all ad¬ 
mit. Now if our Education was making our boys to be, 
in life, as refined and cultured, to have as keen a sense 
of honor, virtue and purity, as our girls, it would be com¬ 
plete. That it is not doing thus, the home, church and 
literature, is as much at fault as our schools. 

In the Education of many of our boys, home training 
is reduced to a minimum. At home every boy should be 
taught from earliest childhood to love and give due honor 
to each member of the household. Girls are generally 
kept at home under their mother’s care, but boys are al¬ 
lowed to run wherever they will. Most boys chaff under 
the least restraint. If their sisters desire to go any¬ 
where, they are insulted to be asked to accompany them. 
Yet society, as now understood, does not look with favor 
upon girls entering its gatherings without escort. A girl’s 
brother is her natural escort. That young man, who could 
attend any social gathering and leave his sister at home 
from want of escort is in point of true manhood a 


116 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


fraud. He is the fruit of this wild undisciplined Young 
America, that can unblushingly run the course of vice 
and wassail, and when sorrow or disaster overtakes him, 
return to that home for shelter and assistance, that home 
which he has scandalized and disgraced, to those dear 
inmates that he has disregarded, and accept their kind 
offices, without feeling the least compunction. 

Opposite of this, is the brightest product of all Educa¬ 
tion the true young man. Such might best be de¬ 
fined as the “True Brother.” Happy the sister that can 
claim such a priceless treasure. The “True Brother.” 
Always kind, mcdest, demure, generous and manly. 
Never quarrelsome, rude, dissipated or profane. His 
voice is sweeter than the “balm inGillead,” his hand is as 
the clouds of April, scattering blessings, his form like 
the oak, his bosom chaste as marble, and his smile sweet 
as Aurora’s the “rosy fingered daughter of the Hawn.” 

I would say to any sister, —“If you have a true brother 
you are triply blest.” Wherever life’s wanderings lead, 
through darksome grove or smiling plain, you will ever 
be gladdened by the heroic kindness of his noble nature. 
Hours of sorrow will have no sadness, for his kind words 
will be the enchanted touchstone to heal the aching 
heart. Hours of weakness will not be dreary, for thy 
sinking form shall find true solace upon the gentle but 
strong pillow of his manly breast. And that breast will 
never weary of its burden. Oh no. On the contrary, 
while the tears fall for thy sufferings, that breast heaves 
with a transcendent, heavenly joy, so high, so noble, so 
inspiring, to know that it is the loved and only support 
of a sorrowing sister’s broken heart. If you can 
claim such a prize, you possess no common bliss. Let 
Love’s purest, most sacred, and holiest smile borrow, even 
a fairer glow, to greet him welcome. Let Love’s ’hand 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


117 


clasp his with softer touches, than the gathering dews 
upon the violet’s cheek. Hide from him a scowl, ora 
biting censure, as you would hide your own heart from 
an adder’s sting. Make his bed as soft as the star born 
ethers of heaven, and about his resting pillow let no in¬ 
truder dare. When he sighs, sing to him songs, old 
songs, fond and dear, sweeter than the Siren’s harp, for 
you have of life’s rewards the brightest and noblest 
guerdon, — “The True Brother.” • 

How beautiful if our Education were producing such 
characters out of the thousands of boys now in our schools. 
If even to the same extent or proportion that it is mak¬ 
ing of the girls “True Sisters.” This would certainly 
be, if the home and school would unitedly and recipro¬ 
cally labor to attain it. In the distribution of priviliges 
at home, boys should not be favored a whit more than 
girls. To every social gathering to which the younger 
members of the family are invited, brothers should al¬ 
ways accompany their sisters. This should be taught 
and enforced as the rule of the family. Parents should 
see that on Sundays, brothers and sisters go to church 
and Sunday-school together, and return the same. Not 
as many do now, strike out, one at a time, and come back 
as each pleases. During school days, girls should not 
be allowed to have any gentleman company, except their 
brothers, and boys should not be allowed to go in the 
society of other ladies, without their sisters. When 
family visits are made and received, every member of 
each family should be represented. When such .visits 
are now made, it is generally the custom to send the 
boys fishing, that their parents be not scandalized by 
their outlandish conduct. I do not mean to suggest 
pntting a bar to our boys going fishing, or romping 
around as much as they please. Let them romp to their 


118 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


heart’s content. Let them enjoy outdoor life in every 
season. But let their sisters romp with them. Would 
not little girls, 10 or 12 years old, enjoy fishing or play, 
ing, or running through the green fields as well as their 
brothers? Would they not enjoy coasting and skating 
in the winter time as well as the boys? Of course they 
would. So when Master Charlie and John want to ^o 
fishing or romping on a bright summer day, give them 
their fishing tackle and fit them out first class. But 
have them to understand that Sister Anne and Mary en¬ 
joy fishing as well as they do, and that it is just as nec¬ 
essary. Give Misses Anne and Mary their fishing outfits and 
let them all go as often as possible. But have it under¬ 
stood, from the beginning, that all must go or none. 
Likewise in winter, when Master Charlie goes skating, 
enforce the same rule. Give Miss Anne her warm hood, 
cloak, mittens, and skates and let her experience the 
skater’s glee. This out-door exercise will save many 
doctor’s bills, and she will grow up strong, healthy and 
more beautiful. This association of brother and sister 
will have a refining influence on both. Master Charlie 
will become careful and discreet in his language, and 
kind and considerate to his sister, when otherwise in the 
association of vicious boys, he would acquire the habit 
of swearing and using profane language, which is ac¬ 
quired so perfectly by many boys, as to be almost terri¬ 
ble. The brother and sister will then possess an equal 
degree of refinement. Not as now, when we see girls, 
who are perfect models of culture and womanliness, have 
brothers whose conduct and language is so debased as 
“to make angels” weep. Fvery member of the family 
should be at home in the evening at an early hour un¬ 
less off on business. This should be strictly enforced 
with boys, as well as with girls. Each should learn, from 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


119 


earliest childhood, that there is ‘ ‘a home society, ” and who 
is absent from that society, sins against it. At home 
everything should be pleasant. Let the children romp 
till they are tired. Allow them all the fun and frolic at 
home, consistent with decorum, so that when they go out 
in life, to buffet its storms, and participate in all its 
stirring scenes, when they see the deceit, hypocrisy and 
vice encircling its finest and most lauded pleasures, re- 
minisceDses will briDg them back to the family reunions, 
“by the old fireside,” where ’Death the approving eye of 
father and mother, they romped and played, while loud¬ 
est “laugh of maddest merriest joy,” told of homes glad¬ 
ness and pleasures undefiled. 

In the Education of home, a father should have his 
boys to associate with him in business. A boy should 
have learned some of the principles of practical busi¬ 
ness, before he begins work in school to acquire know¬ 
ledge of the theory. If a boy be raised on a farm, he 
should learn farming thoroughly, so that he may say, 
starting in life, that he has mastered one trade. Like¬ 
wise in the professions. The lawyer should teach his 
boy the fundamental principles of the. profession, 
and by association the modus opperendi of the craft. 
Because~girls are more practical in their ideas than boys, 
is mostly due to the fact, that they are associated more 
olosely with their mothers in their work, while on the 
other hand, fathers generally want the boys to be out of 
the way. 

The school should supplement the work begun at 
home. Nothing, out of harmony with the fundamental 
principles of virtue and morality, should be tolerated. 
As this period is the formative period, a rigid, but kind 
discipline should he maintain. No school is deserving 
the name, unless it enforces a strict methodical discip- 


120 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


line, and a due regard to the manners and proprieties of 
etiquette. The teacher should hold up to his pupils the 
true models of worth, honor and truth. The teacher 
should be a true and worthy man, of large sympathies, 
or if a woman, should maintain a kind but dignified 
relationship with all her pupils. In a country 
school, the teacher should cultivate a knowledge and 
sympathy for country life. He should be in touch with 
his surroundings. The green pastures, the valleys 
crowned with daisy and violets, the groves of oak and 
hickory, the river and inland streams, the waving fields 
of corn and wheat, the robiDS and bluejays, the crows 
and night owls, and every rural scene of country life 
should be to him subjects for useful instructions, and 
for awakening useful study. The course of study in the 
common schools should be more practical. It should 
bear more strictly upon the problems of every day life. 
They should be largely industrial schools. In the coun¬ 
try schools the useful and artistic principles of Scientific 
Agriculture should be taught. As supplementary work 
it should be part of the course. To the boys, should be 
taught:—road and fence building, Modern Architecture, 
and the cheapest and most convenient plans of building 
a beautiful home, and of constructing barns and out 
buildings for his stock and grain, also Botany and Entom¬ 
ology stripped of its foreign technicalities. The various 
pests which attack the farmer’s crop and orchards should 
be studied, and the best method of resisting their ravag¬ 
es taught. The girls should be taught the theoretical 
principles of Horticulture. They should be encouraged 
to have their own flower gardens at home, and at school 
learn the best methods of caring for plants, and making 
their homes beautiful with them. Girls raised and edu¬ 
cated in the country, should be practical florists, know 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


121 


the names ami qualities of all the plants of their fields 
and gardens, and how to appropriate their beautiful qual¬ 
ities in ornamenting their homes. In our city schools, 
there should be a department of practical mechanics, 
and every student required to learn the theoretical prin¬ 
ciples of some trade. This would be common sense. 
Our teachers would then have to acquire a knowledge of 
the principles of practical business, and not as now, labor 
under the accusation that they are the most unpractical 
people in the world. The course of study in common 
schools should be thorough, but not extensive. Careful 
and accurate work in the nine elementary brauches is all 
that should be attempted. Spelling and the principles 
of Orthography, now superficially run over, shouldreceive 
the closest attention. Fvery child in the common 
schools should be taught Penmanship so carefully that 
he will not be only able to write a plain legible hand, 
but also have ability to write letters, promissory notes, 
deeds, contracts, and to attend to any ordinary business 
correspondence Reading should be taught, as music, to 
be an art, which is to be one of the sources of pleasure 
in life. Arithmetic both Mental and Practical should be 
thoroughly taught, the greatest care being taken to make 
the pupil proficient in original analysis. History and 
Civil Government should never be omitted in the com¬ 
mon school curricula. Grammar should be taught in 
a more practical way than now. Instead of endeavoring 
to make the pupils proficient in analysis, parsmg or 
diagraming, we should rather awaken their efforts in the 
direction of acquiring an accurate and precise use of 
language. To be able to compose rapidly, to write 
readily all ordinary discourse, and to be able to apprec¬ 
iate the true and beautiful in literature, and to discard 
the vicious and vile. These studies with human Phys- 




122 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


iology and Anatomy, should be all that should be at¬ 
tempted in the common schools. If the teachers do 
thorough work in each of these, they will find at the end 
that they have accomplished more good than, if they had 
attempted more. 

As supplementary work, every teacher should endeav¬ 
or to impart to his pupih a love for pure literature. 
Every school should have a small and well selected libra¬ 
ry of good books. The pupils should be taught to “love 
the beautiful and noble in literature” and to scorn what¬ 
ever is base or obscene. They should be taught to 
wander often through that blissful land of treasured 
thought, where the mighty of mankind have lived and 
labored, and transmitted their thoughts under the inspi¬ 
ration of that ‘ ‘light that ne’ er was seen on shore and sea, ” 
to posterity, in the “unsealed treasury of good books.” 

In Ethics, as far as possible, the instruction given boys 
and girls should in their application refer directly to the 
sphere in life, which in the natural course of events, each 
will be called to fill. The girls should be taught the 
true ideal of womanhood, that in every place they should 
aspire to be womanly women, and our boys to be manly 
men. Teachers should point out to each, that success 
in life is not to win place and power, but rather to be one 
of the loved and good, who look on life as a field for im¬ 
provement, for self ennoblement, or who, 

“Count life by virtues, for these do last 
When life’s lame, foiled race is o’er, 

And these when earthly joys are past, 

Shall cheer us on a brighter shore.” 

The teaching of our schools, especially high schools 
and colleges, should shape their instructions so as to 
counteract all false principles of society. Every attack 
against the fixed ideas of society, virtue and honor, they 




RANDOM PLASHES. 


123 


should unitedly resist. They should resist the spread of 
immoral literature, and in every way possible, assist in 
supplying our schools with the very best. Our schools 
and teachers should be a united phallanx against the 
spread of the evil of Intemperance.* Not by hot and un¬ 
ruly temperance organization, but by the quiet work of 
Education, in begetting an intelligent and universal sen¬ 
timent in favor of sobriety. As Educators, we should 
be true to the fundamental principles, and should oppose 
everything that has a tendency to the decline of home 
life, or may lead to its disintegration, Hence the laxity 
of divorce laws, should be opposed. Our national exist¬ 
ence depends upon the preservation of the family. 
Therefore, is it not strange, that the marriage state that 
has been eulogized by nearly all the writers of pagan 
antiquity, and that has been throughout the ages the 
palladium of all virtue, both national and domestic, 
should, in this enlightened day, be considered with less 
regard than in former times. So much so, that writers 
in some of our leading Magazines suggest that marriage 
be only a contract for years between man and woman, to 
expire at the end of a term say five or ten years, bond 
to be given by each party concerned. And others like 
the Russian Philosopher Toltstoi, regard marriage, at 
best, as only a necessary sin. The spread of these ideas 
should be resisted by our whole Educational forces. 

Supplementing the work of home instruction, our 
schools should ever be its guardian. Hence the motive 
of all their efforts should be the formation of sturdy 
honest men and women. Not ladies and gentlemen. 


*Tlie common school teachers of our day have done more for 
the cause of temperance than all other organizations combined. The 
cause of Temperance has just kept pace with their work. Education 
is the only true method of Temperance reform. 



124 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


Oh no. In this age we are producing so many ladies 
and gentlemen, that they are crowding the men and 
women out. It is men that the world wants. Honest 
men. For:— 

“A prince can make a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke and a’ that, 

But an honest man’s aboon his might, 

Guid faith he maun a fa’ that, 

For a’ that and a’ that, 

Their dignities, and a’ that 
The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ w orth, 

Are higher ranks than a’ that.” 

Men of might. Men of the true nobility of worth, 
reared and disciplined in the aristocracy of honor. Men 
of brawn and brain, whose “forms are as pillars of mar¬ 
ble” and each of which is “chiefest among ten thous¬ 
and.” Women whose ideals are above the tinsel and 
gewgaws of fashion, who know that it is just as easy “to 
be a fireside angel as the evil spirit of a household.” 
“Whose price is above rubies, who layeth her hand to 
the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff, whom the 
• heart of her husband doth safely trust, and whose chil¬ 
dren shall arise up and call her blessed.”* 

The Education of our schools should not ignore the 
moral and domestic instructions begun at home. The 
cardinal principles of morality should be instilled in the 
minds of all, and also the pupils should be daily taught 
honesty, kindness to parents, brothers, and sisters, and if 
destined for that state, to be in life true husbands or 
wives. It is just as sensible in a high school to teach a 
boy that it is the noblest ambition to love a true gener¬ 
ous hearted girl, and to win her love as it is to teach the 
principles of language and mathematics. And would it 
also be wrong to teach girls, not by text book or rote, 


^Proverbs. Chapter 37. 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


125 


but by the silent influences of our Education, that her 
field of life is not on the storm beaten highway, but 
rather in the quiet retreat of home, and to look not un¬ 
favorably on the thought of some day being the presid¬ 
ing genius of that sacred and blest abode. You will 
say that this is a girl’s natural ambition;—her dream and 
her hope. Very true. A woman’s hope and ambition 
is always the best. But granting that ambition to be 
natural, does that guarantee the preparation ? Will this 
natural ambition, or desire, furnish her with all the re¬ 
quisite ability to perform all the labors that may devolve 
upon her? Will it teach her to make good bread, bis. 
cuit, pies, sweet butter, cheese, or other wholesome ar¬ 
ticles of diet? I think not. Hence this should be part 
of her Education. 

But it is in the line of morality, that the strongest in¬ 
fluence of our Education should be directed upon boys. 
The fate and destiny of a nation is in the hands of its 
young men. The happiness of a home, as well as the 
maintainance, depends more upon the husband than upon 
the wife. Goethe was right, when he wrote:— 

“All that is womanly points us above.” 

This is apparent with her, but with man, the con¬ 
verse is true. Unless a man is morally reared above the 
level, his tendency is downward. He seems naturally, 
though not so, to have a stronger affinity for depravity 
than woman. At least the love of home is weaker with 
him. Let a true, honorable, worthy, young man, marry 
an uncultured, and perhaps depraved woman, yet if a little 
love smooth the scars, she will in a few years rise to his 
level, and make him a wife that is dutiful, a fitting com¬ 
panion, and will to the fullest extent do a woman’s 
part. But if a depraved man marry a finely cultured 


126 


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woman, he will shortly drag her down to his level. He 
may make an effort to rise to hers, but in the general 
wind up, it is with her a loosing game. Right here is 
a fundamental error in our Education. Parents are 
very particular about the moral training their girls re¬ 
ceive, but they allow the boys to shift for themselves. 
The bo} s moral training is a questiom of little moment. 

The children of the best of families, fare not much 
better in this respect than others. It is useless worry to 
watch the boys. So much so, that one can on any day 
see men of reputed respectability, who will curse and 
swear and use profane language in the presence of little 
boys. You will frequently see men, who will use the 
most shocking obscenities in speech in the presence of 
boys, and even to boys of most tender years, delighted 
if they can bring the blush to the cheek, yet fresh from 
its mother s nursing kiss. These men would not think 
of such a thing before girls. If one were depraved 
enough to attempt it, the spirit of American manhood 
would rise among the bystanders, and would be only pa¬ 
cified with the offender’s blood. But is it any worse to 
use such language in the presence of little girls than 
boys? Is the warp of their spiritual nature more easily 
sullied, their moral sensibilities more easily blunted, the 
unpainted canvas of their budding souls more liable to be 
smirched with sin, or in the miasmic air of vice, to catch 
a stain? Not a whit. The soul of childhood, whether 
of boy or girl, will clamber like the vine about the in¬ 
fluences that surround it. Be those influences viscious, 
it weaves its tendrils about them, and the flower of 
promise will only bring forth the Upas bloom. That 
men are found so depraved, as to wantonly use pro¬ 
fane language in the presence of boys is disgraceful. 
But such was not always so. On the shores of Gallilee 




RANDOM FLASHES. 


127 


was once a teacher, who loved the little boys and girls. 
And doubtless in those days, there were men who would 
use profane language before them. They heeded not 
that teacher’s words, though the winds obeyed him, and 
the Dead answered his call, and the waters of the sea 
was dry land to his feet. His name and words are still 
on the lips of millions, though he passed from earth two 
thousand years ago. But there is one sentence he utter¬ 
ed, which we seldom hear, a sentence directed against 
those whose vile tongues sere childhood’s innocence. 
It should hang from the walls of every Sunday-school, 
and be placarded over the portals of every tenement, 
where children meet. “If you scandalize one of those 
little ones who believe in me, it were better for you that 
a mill-stone be tied to your neck and you be drowned in 
the sea.”* That was the utterance of a heart that loved 
children, and though some may deny the divinity of the 
lips that uttered it, none can deny their truth. The moral 
Education of the tyoys should never be neglected. In 
the school as in the home it should be the teachers con 
slant care. Neglecting the moral training of boys, is th e 
cning sin of modern Education. This is wh}' most of the 
girls, when they leave school, and are arrived at that age 
of womanhood when its is life’s dream to think of love, 
and their minds improved by culture, would fain spread 
her white wings, can scarcely find cultured gentlemen to 
associate with. In every crowd, where culture and re¬ 
finement is the rule, we find that thevast majority, are worn- 
en. All church societies are made up mostly of women. 
But in the rude ruffian crowds, in the haunts of vice, we 
find the boys. All tramps, drunkards, and gamblers 
are boys. Nine tenths of the convicts in the United 


♦Matthew—18 : 6. 



128 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


States are boys. In our high schools we find few boys. 
All loafers on our streets are boys. But enough. 
Every one knows that young men of culture, honor and 
personal purity are very scarce. All know that at pres¬ 
ent the moral Education of boys is sadly neglected. 

Parents think, that if they educate their girls to be re¬ 
fined and cultured, that such will assist them in getting 
married, or easily settled in life. Now, if the boys were 
educated for this purpose, it would be more sensible. 
An educated man generally wants an educated wife, 
but in no instance does he want her to know more than 
he. A man not educated, while he may pretend other¬ 
wise, generally marries a woman no better educated 
than himself. Therefore in morality, culture and re¬ 
finement, both should be raised to the same plain. 
Guard as carefully, in school as well as out of school, a 
boys moral sense and personal purity, as you would a 
girls. Have each to grow up as two twin roses, in vir¬ 
tue’s bloom equally beautiful, and eaqb, in every phase of 
life, inspired by “that chastity of honor, which felt a 
stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, 
and under which vice itself lost half its evil by loosing all 
its grossness.” 

In conclusion, the last injunction that I would suggest 
for “Boyhood and Girlhood at school,” was spoken from 
Sinai when her foundations quaked, her summits were veil¬ 
ed in smoke, while lurid lightenings heralded the footfalls 
of God,—A God giving his laws to his people, while 
trembling Nature, dumb with fear, let loose her bolts of 
fire to give deep emphasis to the earnest dictates:—“Hon¬ 
or thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long 
upon the lan 1, which the Lord thy God giveththee.* 
“Honor thy father and thy mother. ” To honor is to love. 


*Ex 21 — 12 . 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


129 


To love is to protect. I would print this on the portals of 
every home, church and school. I would hang it as a 
motto on the walls. It would be the mystic password 
to religion, the enchanted sesame, whose utterance 
opens the hurried treasures of love, the jewels of magna¬ 
nimity and the grandeur of manhood. It would be my 
text in spring, when the Snowdrops, the Violets, the 
Aenomes, the Sweet Briars, and the Columbines are open¬ 
ing bu^d, and scattering their fragrance on the mellow 
April air, to beautify the exhilerating loveliness of East¬ 
ertide. It would be the same when summer is here 
and the sweet June roses, and the Pansys are natures 
gems of flower and field. And in Autumn with its 
groves of gold and russet, and fruit and falling leaf, it 
would still be the same, — “Honor thy father and thy 
mother.” And when winter snows lie deep, and we hear 
the Christmas bells, it would ring in perennial strength— 
its olden sanctity, century blest and race honored, hallow¬ 
ed by the endearing reverence of all the great and good, — 
“Honor thy father and thy mother.” What other in¬ 
junction do we need? Be virtuous, be pure in heart, be 
honest, be kind, avoid swearing, profanity, drunkenness, 
does not that embrace them all? Be virtuous. Who 
can be otherwise, who honors in love the drooping form 
of father or mother and accepts and heeds their earnest 
ministrations? Be pure in heart. Who can be aught 
else, who heeds in love their hopes, that their red-veined 
race may never know the inoculation of vice, and who 
bends to their feeble wants a grateful generosity? Be 
honest. Who can be aught else, who imitates their 
sturdy and untarnished integrity? And so through the 
whole catalogue of sin, they find no dangers for him 
whose heart is mailed in the generous cloak of paternal 
love and duty. “Honor thy father and thy mother” is 


130 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


a true panacea of all wrong. But in this respect the 
pagans of antiquit}' will rise up in judgment upon this 
generation. From the wasting sand-drifts of the Nile 
valley, where a race,—embalmed in Cryptic stone or 
hewn Sarcophagi, looked out from their dismal sepulchres, 
through the long flight of four thousand years, comes a 
rebuke upon the sacrilegious irreverence paid by the 
present generation to old age, and to father and mother. 
In ancient Egypt, if a young man, starting on an import¬ 
ant journey, should meet an old man, he would expect to 
receive a blessing. The blessing of an old man, or of 
father and mother, was regarded as a blessing of God, 
and as such their curse was feared. When we read in 
the Old Testament of Pharoh the King descending from 
his throne to meet Jacob, and to receive his blessing, do 
we think of this? We wonder, that a king should notice 
a poor, friendless shepherd of a hostile and hated race. 
But when we think of the reputed sanctity clustering 
about the white hairs of old age, the wonder vanishes. 
But not only in Egypt, but in Greece the proverb went, 
“That in Sparta ’twas a pleasure to grow old.” Over 
that race and their creeds Old Time has long since rolled 
his ‘ ‘devouring wheels. ” The jealous Ivies cling to the few 
monuments above their bones, that have survived the 
teeth of Ruin. From the stiff cerements of stone that 
encase their dust, we look upon the colossal pyramid or 
obelisk and wonder at their greatness. Proud Sph} r nx 
grins a ‘ ‘stony smile” as he views the waste, for bis burried 
altars and his scattered shrines. But no echo comes 
save the moan of desert winds, and the yearly overflow 
of the Nile, as it bathed their fields, or dashed against 
their thrones in the long ago. Yet that simple legend 
of their respect for old age and of father and of mother, 
is their greatest monument and tells us how nobly thy 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


131 


A)ved when their hearts were flesh as ours. “Honor 
thy father and thy mother.” Let us no longer allow the 
darkness of paganism to rebuke us in this respect. Let 
us teach this principle as the holiest of the holy. Let 
us awaken in the boys and girls a true sense of this res¬ 
ponsibility, and inspire them with a true parental love, 
that the}' may know it is their sacred duty, as those 
hands once so strong weaken, and the brows wrinkle and 
the eyes ever so loving grow dim, to smooth the rough 
ways for the tottering feet, and to throw a strong right 
arm round the drooping form, as it stands by the crumb¬ 
ling brink of the grave. 

Many other principles, than those which I have enum¬ 
erated should be taught, but none of these should be 
neglected. Every one of them is older than the proud¬ 
est monument of civilization, and they are song blest in 
heart love, and tear blest in heart gratitude, through the 
long lapses of many thousand honored years. In their 
inculcation we should not loose heart. Our educational 
work is better to-day, than ever before. Slowly, grandly, 
proudly, we are marching on. Hear the drum beat, and 
the oncoming tramp, tramp, tramp of a nearing race, 
among whom ignorance will no more spread its evil, and 
prejudice and fanaticism will not tear assunder hearts 
“that ought to twine. ” Let us not loose faith in our 
work. That light, which as a cloud of fire, led the 
Israelites through the desert, and as a meteor flash led 
Saul to Damascus, is still though in cloud veiled sheen 
leading the races onward and upward. And in the 
the words of Cardinal Newman let us say: 

“ Lead, kindly light; amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead thou me on; 

The night is dark and I am far from home, 

Lead thou me on. 


132 


RANDOM FLASHES. 




Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step enough for me. 

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou 
Shouldst lead me on; 

I loved to choose and see my path; but now 
Lead thou me on; 

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, 

Pride ruled my will; remember not past years. 

So long thy power has blest me, sure it till 
Will lead me on. 

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till 
The night is gone ; 

And with the morn those angel faces smile, 
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.” 










0)e Zltanhj titan anb tfye 
IDomanltj tDoman, 


To make a happy fireside clime 
To weans and wife, 
That’s the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life. 


— Robert Burns. 



















L 

































<]THE Mm MM END THE W0M1NLY WOMMO 


In fixing the place and dignity of a human being in 
society, we find a vast difference of opinion. One heaps 
on his devoted head an awful responsibility, and makes 
his average native capacity assume mammoth propor¬ 
tions. The other feigns surprise at such exageration, 
and with the cynic’s jeer, gives man a place, only with 
the rest of Nature’s breathing organisms, or with the 
flower that shortly blooms to die. Between these di¬ 
verse opinions, I take a middle ground. I have no de¬ 
sire to unduly magnify the responsibilities, or even to 
degrade the paltry efforts of a mind. The mind is the 
spark of divine life in man. It alone ennobles while 
all else degrade. And it is to show a few of the grand 
attributes of mind, that I invite your attention to its 
noblest and proudest heroes:— The manly man and the 

WOMANLY WOMAN. 

In my former treatise, I have taken, from out the vast 
hosts of earth’s teeming millions, two characters, simple, 
homelike, humbly born, humbly bred, humbly named:— 
John and Jennie. They hailed from the same school. 
A little frame wainscoted affair, with three windows to 
the side, a brick flue in the middle, old home made 
seats, and a wide board, painted and nailed to the wall, 
for a blackboard;—fenced with a worm fence of old oak 
rails, that some “unknown Abraham Lincoln” had split, 
and which the boys, despite the protests of teacher and 
directors, used to tear down monthly to build play- 



136 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


houses for the girls. A school of the primitive days. 
The college of the pioneer. The first step in the evolu¬ 
tion of school architecture above the old log-cabin. 
Simple as they were, we of this later day cannot venture 
a criticism upon the humble glories of “the log-cabin 
days.” Can Greece forget Acropolis? Rome h6r Col¬ 
iseum, Egypt her pyramids or England the Armada and 
Waterloo? Neither can we, children of a race as brave 
and true, as ever those who glinted shields at MarathoD, 
or sailed proud crafts on Tyrean Seas, or followed the 
silent Pontiff up the steep to make the votive libation 
for the weal of Eternal Rome. No, we cannot forget 
them;—though the domicile that sheltered them, when 
work-worn and weary, and the castle upon whose walls 
they hung their kingly arms and escutcheons when the 
war was done,—and the palace in whose halls they heard 
the praises of their deeds, —listed to song more enchanting 
than lay of minstrel or harp of Troubadour,—and were 
greeted with the welcome and admiring smiles of lady 
fair,—was the plain,—simple,—old log-cabin of our 
fathers day. 

‘‘That old log cabin in gloom o’er-cast, 

Is one of the lamps of our mystic past; 

By whose fading beams from their mouldering place, 
We read the thoughts of an heroic rac**, 

Yet neither the Goth’s nor the Grecian’s skill, 

In their humble structure one mite did fill; — 

They were built by our noble fathers alone;— 

The old log cabin is all our own.” 

John left, as I have told you, this school at an early 
age, and went out into the world. Jennie remained, 
completed its work, and in the morning of womanhood, 
looked forth on life as we gaze at sunrise on the blue 
sky of an April day,—wondering if there will be a cloud. 
She and John had met. The lore of numbers learned 
together. If perchance, while pouring over the pictured 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


137 


thought upon the page, or turning the worn familiar 
leaves, they caught a lesson betwixt the lines, from 
which was outlined shadowy dreams of love, where 
blushes fret the livid cheek;—and heart throbs beat in 
music wild and strong, we will not say. Suffice that 
they met,—parted,—and on the morning of manhood 
and womanhood, set out on life alone. Jennie a woman, 
gentle, modest, kind, —like the spring Daisy of the 
valley, opening its petals to greet the morning sun, she 
fixed her eyes upon the possibilities of the future. 
John had seen the darker side. Like B\’ron’s Childe 
Harrold, he had run the long sad course of sin but, 

•‘Through this at last he learned to moralize, 

For meditation fixed at times on him, 

And conscious reason whispered to despise, 

His early youth, —misspent in maddest whim, 

And as he gazed on Truth, his aching eyes grew dim. 

And in the midst of this meditation, as the Harpy 
voice of sin was hissing in his soul and blighting every 
sensibility of his nature, he caught a whisper of the old¬ 
en time. A way back amidst the sunset bills of the 
past was an old home. In it lived three inmates. The 
geese gabbled ia the yard. The sun was setting. 
Away down the lane, in long procession the lowing cat¬ 
tle were returning home. The blue sky of Day was 
blending with the gold of Evening. The three inmates 
were seated at supper. A prayer was said. A burried 
sorrow seemed to possess each heart;—for there was a 
vacant chair. At last a woman’s voice broke the 
silence; “My boy will yet be a man.” The voice was 
sad, but so sweet, so familiar. It had crooned o’er him, 
in the fretful hours of his childhood, all the sweet old 
lullabys of love. And in the vision he sav on that face 
the deep lines of sorrow. There was a cloud in that 


138 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


mother’s heart. There were streaks of gray in the thick 
luxurantly dark-flowing hair. And knowing the cause, 
and feeling a grief that pen cannot describe, he called 
the latent beams of dying manhood together in his soul, 
and vowed with all the fervency of his nature. “Yes, I 

WILL BE A MAN.” 

‘ ‘I WILL BE a MAN. ’ ’ Mighty resolution f Long hope! 
Vast thought! The mighty resolves of a Caesar, an 
Alexander, a Napoleon, all pale to insignificance com¬ 
pared with this proud resolve. “I will be a man”! 
Under the inspiration of this mighty resolve, John as¬ 
sumed sober ways. He sought employment. In the 
big city he found it hard to combat the vices and false 
allurements that beset him everywhere. He returned 
to the scenes ot his childhood. Nearing the old home¬ 
stead he passed the old schoolhouse. It was in ruins. 
The wainscoting was torn off. The windows were out. 
In the twilight,—Bats, Cat birds and Wrens fluttered 
around. They had built nests beneath the eaves. It 
was a scene of sadness. Yet the silence seemed to speak 
sweet whispers of the long ago. It told of the love, the 
joys, the sorrows of other days. But except to brush 
off the intrusive tear, and stiffle down the welling emo¬ 
tions of his breast, he passed on. He could not linger 
there, and at the top of the nearest hill, his sad, anxious 
eyes looked down once more upon his childhood’s home. 
But that home was desolate. No sweet voices of the 
olden time greeted him welcome. The trees that he had 
planted, the favorite walks of yore, the rosebushes in the 
yard, and the ivies that once twined their tendrils along 
the walls, were no more. It was a home without an in¬ 
habitant. The evening breezes moaned through the de¬ 
serted halls, and to him, the echoing whispers, were 
voices from the grave. On the hill close by in the quiet 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


139 


country cemetery in the family lot, he saw three mounds. 
Above each was a marble slab, The cause of the deso¬ 
lation was clear. While he was wantoning in the world 
of sin, while hearts were breaking for the errors of his 
youth, there was crape on the doorposts of his old 
home, and without he heeding, Death had called once, 
and again, and then again, and laid the sorrowing hearts 
to rest. And when Contrition stirred resolve, and Hope 
awakened, spread sweet fancy’s wing, and pictured to 
him a glad reunion, a fond, sweet, intense hour of for¬ 
giving, and had brought his feet back to the home, 
where lay enshrined all the old, old memories of his 
youth: 

‘•The mossy marble did rest 
On the forms of those he prest 
In their bloom, 

And the names he lovel to hear 
Bad been carved for many a year, 

On the tomb.” 

He tried to read the inscriptions, but he could only 
note their names. He was alone. It was night. But 
his grief was darker than night. At last like the rain¬ 
bow over the cloud, tears came to his eyes, and as the 
fountains of his grief^burst open, the stars became vis¬ 
ible in the sky. They loved him, forctheir beams came 
manv million miles to [cheer him. And every ray 
whose shimmering light was glinted back from tear to 
dewdrop seemed to say: “Grieve not, be only a man.” 
And then the light shot back again from drops distilled 
by stars upon each blade and leaf, to the tear distilled 
by grief and it, too, seemed to say :J[ ‘ ‘Grieve not, be 
only a man.” And he seemed to hear voices, the echoes 
borne by the breeze over the marbled mounds before 
him, voices from whence none knew, forsooth living 
voices, but whether of this earth mortal, or from the 


140 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


bournes of “that unknown country” where rest the sable 
draped legions of the dead, or merely the repeated echoes 
from the shores of memory old, his grief stricken soul 
could not decide, save that the voices were familiar, and 
whether spirit or mortal their sublimest injunction was, 
“be only a man.” So calling his energies tog^her and 
locking in his broken heart his crushing griefs, he left 
that place, returned to the city, his soul pledged to obey 
that grand injunction, and trusting for help and guid¬ 
ance in that mysterous power who stands beyond the 
stars, upon “the shores of nothing,” holding the uni¬ 
verse in the hollow of his hand, heeding even the cry of 
the wounded sparrow as it flutteringly falls, knowing 
and loving all, and ever waiting to aid the heroic heart to 
“be only a man.” 

“Only a man.” What greatness clusters around that 
common place name. History tells of kings who sat on 
thrones of burnished gold, whose scepters ruled the 
nations, who marshalled the armies of Gog and Magog 
and sent them forth to battle, at whose smile was peace 
and at whose frown ran seas of blood. But what says 
History of him who was only a man? 

Only a man. Where now the sand drifts rise like 
waves of foam, and the bones of caravans and pilgrims 
bleach along the changing by paths across the once fer¬ 
tile valley of the Nile, was once a race enslaved. Their 
burdens were heavy for they were forced to make brick 
without straw. But there arose a man in their midst. 
God’s voice called him from a burning bush. His peo¬ 
ple took heart. Their oppressors were struck with awe 
and fear came upon all, when they beheld his mighty 
deeds. At his command, the rivers ran with blood, 
frogs and locusts attacked the abodes of men, the first born 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


141 


of all creation died, in a night. At last his people were 
set free. They spread triumphant banners, and raised 
glad song of Jubilee, as he led them over seas, and 
through the trackless Assyrian deserts. For forty years 
by the lonely bivouac or from Sinai’s top he taught his 
people, law, justice, virtue, religion and liberty. At 
last on “Moab’s lonely mountain he died.” In the full 
light of God, with his eyes fixed on the radiant hills and 
green valleys of the land of promise, the land he had 
loved so well, the land for whose possession he had 
prayed so fervently, the land every foot of which is 
holy ground and which his people yet claim as their in¬ 
alienable heritage. He died there and God laid him to 
rest. His people mourned him, and his praise is not 
yet hushed. Moses, thou prophet, hero, prince, seer, 
lawgiver, king, soldier teacher, thy greatest title is, 
thou wert a man. 

Only a man. Scattered here and there in warring 
factions and robber hordes, with no system of Govern¬ 
ment, with no religion except the darkest idolatry, was 
the proud race of Ishmael one thousand years ago. On 
the wide valleys of old Arabia, across whose wastes the 
fleet footed courser passed, or the patient camel plodded 
his weary way, there was no voice to speak of their 
ancient blood and faith, to soften their revengeful feroc¬ 
ity, and to instill into their impulsive souls the thrill of 
patriotism, or to mould the hordes and factions into a 
grand homogeneous nation. But a man appeared. His 
form, slender and delicate, his eye, the poets dark and 
dreamy, his heart tender as a woman’s, but impulsive as 
the lightning in the tempest, his soul, proud, heroic, 
blazing through those dreamy eyes the iron nature of 
the warrior bold. Communing with nature in lonely 
caves, or in following the caravans across the desert, he 


142 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


caught an inspiration. What infused that inspiration? 
Perhaps the glorious sun, the sky of enravishing blue, 
and the golden clouds that adorn sweet nature in a 
Southern land, formed for him an object making lens, 
and piercing the dark films of idolatry and superstition, 
“disenchanting the lethargy of his country’s dead patriot- 
ism.” spread bright on the canvas of his wrapt and 
dreamy soul, the glorious picture of Arabia made free. 
However that be, his dream became vitalized into vast 
conquering armies, till Arabia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, 
Asia Minor and at last, Spain bowed before his might. 
The world wondered and trembled. Nations sank from 
existence, and in the throes of tumultuous war, armies 
and races dashed against his conquering cohorts, only to 
die in the earthquake shock of blood and battle,—while 
the seas were white with his proud sails, and wherever 
the oows bent to cut the brine, or his victor comerades 
raised glad cheer, they held aloft the triumphant cres¬ 
cent, that had waved victorous over a thousand fields. 
Before him, was blood; behind him, was peace, Cities, 
schools, arts, sciences, Government and law. Moham¬ 
med, Thou Prophet,—hero,—soldier,—nation builder,— 
king,—creed inventor,—or whatever called by friend 
or foe, thou wert through all, at best, a man. 

Only a man. Four hundred years ago I see the 
bronzed face of a poor sailor standing in the presence of 
all the great and learned whose wisdom directed and 
adorned the proud realm of Castile and Arrogan. His 
form is tall. His eye dark. The contour of his brow 
bespeak his Roman blood. But he is a son of the sea. 
The once dark locks that adorn his proud temples are 
whitened by the brine. What has he to say. The 
mitered Abbot shakes his head, the bishop raises his 
Crozier menacingly and the learned turn away to ridi- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


143 


cuie. All say it cannot be. Yet soon three little ships 
are pushing out from the shore. Out, farther out, 
passed the encircling ilses, out, farther out, into the 
unknown and trackless waste of ocean old, and 
“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 

The furrow followed free 
They were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea.” 

Fear stirred within the breasts of the sailors, and in¬ 
cited all to mutiny. They threatened the old sailer with 
vengeance. They exhorted him to turn from his course. 
Superstition takes possession of all. Old Neptune, jeal¬ 
ous of his watery domain, incites all the monsters of the 
sea to rise against the fearless marriner. The sea 
nymphs and Nereides chant fantastic dirges. They 
heard the Siren’s song luring them to the whirlpools of 
death. But the old sailor, locking in his breast ail his 
thoughts, deep thoughts, “deeper than the deep ocean,’’ 
held on his course. Perhaps as he walked the deck, 
amid all the pictured terrors of the deep, his mind 
infused with prophetic inspiration, saw in mystic 
panorama, unknown Americas, unknown flags, lands 
of freedom, lands of love, lands of universal education, 
lands of governments for the people and by the people, 
which his little ship was leading the great mass of op¬ 
pressed and downtrodden humanity to enjoy. Colum¬ 
bus, thou sea king, Prince of the deep, bravest marriner 
that, ever eyed a tempest, or guided bark through the 
seething brine, thou wert, whether in storm or in calm, 
A MAN. 

“Only a man,”—and we see a Napoleon building 
empires,—an Angelo casting mud statues in the streets 
of Home,—an Alexander Campbell formulating his prin¬ 
ciples and laws or Rhetoric,—a John Wesley amid the 
poor of England,—a G-eneral Booth in the slums of 




144 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


London,—a Sir Isaac Newton reading the story of the 
stars,—a Pascal exploring the mysteries of Science,—a 
Gibbon contemplating the Grandeur of Ancient Borne,— 
a Cardinal Manning exposing the grievances of the lab- 
oriDg classes, and a Damien dying a martyr among the 
lepers of Molakai. Manhood is the Jeweled crown that 
adorns all human greatness, and a man is the knight, 
the king, the hero of humanity. Manhood is what we 
mean by the term character. The fixedness of purpose 
and ability to do something worth}’, honorable and great. 
It is the intellectual potential, the conserved energy of 
mind, stored away in the brain, by all the kinematics of 
effort, well directed through a laborious and industrious 
lifetime. It is the highest and proudest title, and ad¬ 
ditional tributes are superfluous mockeries, which, 
though they may designate, they cannot dignify or give 
distinction to him, who is Only a Man. 

And in like manner, and with equal degree of merit, 
humanity has proud tributes for her who was only a 
woman. Only a woman, and we read the story of her 
who was blessed among woman.” Only a woman. A 
Buth, a Joan of Arc, a Molly Pitcher. Only a woman, 
loveliest name, fondest tribute to humanity’s queen. 
We each have our own distinct ideal. Yours is different 
from mine. Mine might be pictured, as one rather tall, 
delicate of form, her head crowned with an abundance 
of dark auburn hair, always neatly tied up in a net, her 
face not strikingly beautiful, wearing a sad, kind look, 
often made radiant with a benign and gentle smile. 
Never arrayed in gorgeous attire, but nearly always clad in 
a simple dress of gray or dark gingham. Her step light, 
and her voice sweet as the harps of heaven and whether 
in simple conversation, or poured forth in song, in tune 
with the hum of the old spinning wheel, which her fingers 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


145 


turned, it had the same soothing gentleness and entranc¬ 
ing sweetness. She lived in a cabin Duilt of logs, 
partly unhewn. Yet she seemed happy and with her 
happiness was contentment. The splendors of fashion, 
and the allurements and tinsel that place offers in the 
world to its votaries, seemed never to interest her. Her 
only ambition was to be the loved and dutiful wife, of 
one who came from ‘ ‘over the sea. ” From the land of the 
harp and the shamrock. But not willingly, and not 
without regrets, had he come. His native land, the 
green isle of the sea,—rich in legends, and stories of 
ancient greatness,—stories of heroic struggle and disas¬ 
trous defea 1 ,—struggles in which his own kindred and 
blood had participated, and her lovely scenery and tales 
of superstition so entertainingly preseved in the common 
folk—lore of her generous peasantry, had so woven itself 
about his heart that it seemed like tearing himself away 
from all that love could revere or affection venerate, to 
leave his native land. But when the ship spread sail, 
and he saw the green peaks of Old Ireland’s hills dip 
beneath the wave, there was a joy in his grief to know 
that he was going to a land where the inherited hate of 
race and creed did not exist,—a land that knew no dis¬ 
tinction on account of caste, a land whose stary flag was 
the emblem of the equality of all its people before the 
law,—the land of which the persecuted exile might with 
truth say:— 

“Thank Gcd for the land where pride is clipped, 

Where arrogance stalks apart, 

Where law and song, and loathing of wrong 
Are words of the common heart, 

Where the masses honor straightforward strength, 

And know when veins are bled, 

That the bluest blood is putrid blood, 

That the people’s blood is red.” 

And she came with him. And when after he had 




146 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


toiled for years as a laborer on the railroad, and had laid 
aside the spade and took up the ax to hew himself 
out a dwelling place in the forest, she was there and 
knowing that it was her presence that made her poor, 
rude habitation a “home. ” The last time I saw her, I 
have only a faint recollection, for her looks and features 
are now with me, very indistinct, blurred by the hand of 
time. But I remember that all were in tears, and that 
they took her away in a singular shaped box that they 
called a coffin. When I asked them where, and what 
this meant, they told me she was dead. That 3 he would 
never come back again. That she had only one regret 
in going and that was, that she must leave her five young 
boys of whom I was one. Such was my ideal womanly 
woman, and as 1 said before, mine is no lovelier or bet¬ 
ter than yours. ADd that } r oung man or young woman 
whose ideal of womanly character is defined by the word 
“mother,” and who holds that character enshrined in 
love’s everlasting ura, is in a great part the manly man 

AND THE WOMANLY WOMAN. 

But we must hasten on. John and Jennie must be 
kept in sight. They are the characters of our theme. 
We said they had met, and hinted they had loved, and 
then we said they had parted. That is, their places of 
abode became distant, and their ways of life diverged. 
\ et in that parting there may have been words spoken, 
and love’s silvery wings may have hovered there, as emo¬ 
tion held wrapt silence, during the enchanting converse 
of sad looks and sighs, as heart to heart in twilight still¬ 
ness both felt the crushing desolation of first love’s 
blighted hopes. If in that parting there was any hint 
of a “future,” the keenest gossiper never supposed. 
And seeing John's ways of living, all were certain that 
parting was final. That — 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


147 


That was the encl of it all, 

Love’s dream had ended in vain, 

That the garlands of tenderness woven in joy 
Were withered by sorrow again;— 

Yes that was the end of it all, 

Love’s hand had lost all of its art. 

And the hearts that should twine from that 
hour knew but hate, 

And drifted forever apart. 

But if they meet again, and their are mighty possibili¬ 
ties in if, the sequel of our discourse will tell. John, 
as we have said, resolved to be a man. In the world,, 
to be a man, we have indicated, is to aspire by honor¬ 
able means to be a character great, noble and true. 
To try to do something worthy of a name. To essay 
achievement. To love honor, and above the ordinary 
duties of life, have an honest aspiration and regard for 
fame , “the last infirmity of noble minds/’ In the home 
w r e have hinted that to be a man is to be obedient and 
dutiful to the wishes and injunctions of father or mother. 
I will now close our discourse by hinting what it is to be 
a man in love. 

We need not delay our theme, as to offer a suggestion 
or a criticism of a woman’s love. A woman may be 
proud, haughty, disagreeable, but she is ever a woman 
in love. The only avenue to a woman’s heart is love. 
Along that pathway, through the sunlit land of her 
hopes and joys, she welcomes all, on whose shield is 
escutcheoned the mystic password, love. In that clime 
is not known suspicion. Admiration, trust, and sacred 
devotion is only found there. Doubtless this is the land 
of which the poet speaks:— 

“Know ye the land, where the cypress and myrtle, 

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime, 

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 

Kow melt into sorrow, or madden to crime. 

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 


148 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine, 
Where the light wings of zephyr oppressed with perfume, 
Wax faint over the garden of Gul in her bloom 
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute, 

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 

And all, save the Spirit of man, is Divine.” 

A loDg time ago, in the morning of modern civiliza¬ 
tion, when the refining influences of the Christian relig¬ 
ion, began to soften the hearts of the warlike barbarians 
of Northern Europe, then came into existence an organ¬ 
ization known as Chivalry, or knighthood. The causes 
which provided this are many. We need not note them. 
But the fundamental ideas of Chivalry were bravery, 
honor, virtue and duty. The true koight was ever a 
man,—a manly man. Whether in the shock of death, 
when lances where shivered and corselets rent, or amid 
the weary anxious watching— 

When he lay down to rest with corselet laced, 

Pillowed on buckle cold and hard, 

Or carved at the meal with gloves of steel, 

And quaffed the red wine through helmet barred, 

He was ever a man. A man, when wounded and 
trampled by foeman’s hoofs, he was left upon the crim¬ 
soned plain to die unsuccored and alone. A man in his 
brave allegiance to his country and his God. A man in 
his tender devotion to a memory and a vow. A vow 
long since spoken in the gray gloaming of the evening 
’Death the approving stars, by the lattice of the old 
castle’s window, whispered in the proud ecstacy of hope, 
binding-all that life can give or cherish in love’s ever¬ 
lasting pledge. A pledge given on the honor of a 
knight. Its fervency has given a new world to romance, 
and the knightly devotion of Chivalry to woman, lifted 
love out of the mire of sensuality, and gave its devotion 
the sacramental seal of purity and truth. The noble 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


149 * 


homage paid by the true knight to his lad} r love is the 
sweetest love song of mankind. Let us not laugh at its 
extravagance. That which has given the sweetest 
charm to all literature and gave to the poet’s pen its 
sweetest inspiration, deserves some consideration even 
in this cold, passionless age. What were some of the 
characteristics of this manly love, of the Chivalrous days 
of old? Let us read some of them from the poets, the 
historians of the soul, who tell the true story of man as 
it is written on the manuscript of his heart. First, it 
was not mercenary, 

“If you be not the heiress born, 

But t quote he the lawful heir, 

We two shall wed tomorrow morn 
And you shall still be Lady Clare.” 

Second. Its memories were life’s sweetest guerdon. 
“When my faithful lute recorded 
All my spirit felt for thee, 

And they smile the song rewarded 
Worth whole years of fame to me.” 

Third. It was heroic, and humane 

“Oft it hath the cruel heart appeased, 

And worthier folk made worthier of name, 

And causeth all to dreden vice and shame.” 

But the Days of Chivalry are gone. The numbered 
years are their monuments. The} r live in the passion of 
romance and the legends of song. “That chastity of 
honor which felt a stain like a wound,” and which their 
spirits exemplified is still loved and cherished. And the 
spirit of love today, is nobler and grander, than that 
which springs from the legends of old fields of honor, 
or that was born of the wooings echoed from the lattice 
of gray castle walls. The love which the knight proffered 
was a manly love, and the true knight as we said, was 
ever a manly man. But the love that rewarded his 
pleadings was not a womanly love, no, it was only a 


150 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


lady’s love. It was his fortune only to woo a lady’s love, 
never a woman’s. That distinction belongs only to the 
civilization of the nineteenth century. In those bygone 
times, woman was ever a dependent being. Work de¬ 
graded her. The menials tha^ served her and obeyed 
her dictates, were never ranked in Romance as respectible. 
Romance pictured her only in her beauty and helpless¬ 
ness. Chivalry never paid court to a woman with a su¬ 
perior mind. She always was endowed with a confiding 
intellectual mediocrity, which made her the helpless 
creature of man’s caprice and frequently his victim. 
Everything great accomplished by her gentle hand, was 
ever the result of her instinct or emotion. Never of her 
intellect. In this was Chivalry’s mistake. Her ideal 
knight surpassed in his grandeur of character and honor 
every previous type of manhood. Rmaldo was nobler than 
Aeneas. Ivanhoe is a better lover than Menelaus. No 
Grecian hero, compares, even in his mythical character 
with Wallace of Scotland or Winkelried of Switzerland. 
In true unselfih patriotism, these two surpass every hero 
of classic fame. But the women of Chivalry are not 
equal to the type of the classic days. Irene, the unfor¬ 
tunate wife of Rienzi, is not as unselfih or heroic in her 
devotion as Andromache, the wife of Hector. Hers was 
a proud love, living only in her thirst for glory or for 
the glamour that surrounds a throne. While the charac¬ 
ter of the Tojan woman, ever true and unselfish in her 
womanly instincts, shines out as perfect as the rose and 
as beautiful as a star. She is the same lovely character 
either in joy or in grief, either when her Hector returns 
the Saviour of his country, or when his brave hearts 
blood washed the sands of “Phrygian Simoas.” The 
Literature of Chivalry introduces us to no womanly 
characters as chaste, as Penelope the wife Ulysses, or as 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


151 


patriotic as Volumia, the mother of Corialanus. But in 
our day there is a change. The knight who now in the 
gloaming seeks the lattice of his lady love, must not ex¬ 
pect to find the dependent, confiding creature of the 
Chivalrous day. Instead, he finds a nobler and purer 
and more womanly character. Or the womanly woman. 
Such character, Chivalry never knew. The glories of 
Greece, her arts, her romance, all put forth to embellish 
the fame of her heroic sons, never once possess such 
character;—the womanly woman. No such belongs to 
our day! The past knew not such character. Amid 
the mouldering wrecks of centuries,—Love has left his 
record shining out boldly above the ruin of decay. 
Love is the Siren, whose immortal song, once sung can 
never die. Once in primeval days, she sang a song upon 
the flowery banks of Eden, when guilless lovers, enrapt¬ 
ured first gazed upon the virgin beauties of a newborn 
world. Again the orchards bloom,—the air is redolent 
with the soft perfume,—the blue sky, vocal with the song 
of birds,—the flowers, are blushing in lusty clusters over 
the green grass-carpeted earth and the winds sighing 
softly through the swaying branches;—all in sweetest 
harmony entrancing tells how sweet was the welcome, 
when Love sang her first hymenial song. But that song 
had ending far too sad for tears. Again her song was 
heard. And at the well stood fair Rebekah, when far in 
distant Canaan her youthful lover did impatient wait. 
Again was heard the notes, and faithful Ruth did glean 
among the fields of Boaz,—Israel toiled seven years for 
Rachael, and timid Ester by love’s tender power made 
void a ruthless edict of the unalterable Median and Per¬ 
sian law. But these few instances but emphasize the 
degradation of woman in those days. She was little 
better than a slave. Among the chosen people we never 


152 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


find again the sweet Romance of Eden repeated. Adam 
is one of the few great characters in the Old Testament, 
that we have reason to believe was faithful to one wife. 
Most of the others practiced polygamy and concubinage. 
In such a state the pure emotions of love’s highest ideal 
could never come. Though God might speak in thunder 
tones from Siniai’s peak, and with His finger write on 
stone the everlasting mandates of his law,—though he 
had abode beneath the brazen wings of brooding cherubim, 
overshadowing the Ark of the Covenant, still that society 
would fail, where polygamy stamped lusts loathsome 
dominion and marred the fair white brow of woman¬ 
hood with its awful and damning stain. Such blight 
bedarkens every song of love that now reechoes from 
the distant past. In Greece.. Ah Greece! A moment 
pause! Dim shodowed picture of a glory past. Cradle 
of Literature and mother of Arts. No land richer in 
the memories of heroes and sages. Let us gather again 
beneath thy Pantheon, and rehabilitate the crumbling 
arches of Acropolis. Let thy shattered columns speak. 
Like stars, enbrightening each niche and Dome of thy 
shattered ruins, we see the glorious galaxy of thy hero 
dead. Again we listen to the statesmanship of Pericles, 
the eloquence of Demosthenes, the wisdom of Socrites 
and the genius of Homer. Not a broken column, not a 
mound but urns the dust of a sage. Plato, Zeno, 
Herodatus, Archimedes all again speak. We conjure back 
their shades,- and see again the Olymphian games, the 
training school of heroes. Warriors? None such as they,— 
Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, Agesleus Xenophen, 
and Epominondas, each names to conjure the inspira¬ 
tion of a hero. Art? Yes. Not a column which does 
not speak of Praxiteles or of Phidias, whose genius put 
life into granite, and whose chisel fashioned the “breath- 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


153 


ing marble” in its faultless beauty to be the model 
and inspiration of Art in all time. But amid this glorious 
array of sages, warriors, poets, philosophers and sculp¬ 
tors, what say the stony records of woman? Was she 
loved and renowned? What mention finds she in the 
glorious history of ancient Greece? A few were cele¬ 
brated. Aspasia and Phryne were admired by the great¬ 
est men of Greece. Cotytto had altars erected to her, 
and was worshiped at Athens as the popular Venus. 
The painters of Sycion immortalized Glycera. The love 
of Sapho, is the song of passion today. But these were 
all courtesans. They were not the Mives and mothers of 
the Grecian people. While these, to the honor of their 
intelligence be it known, enjoyed high privileges, and 
were honored by the dignitaries of the state, the vast 
majority of the women were confined at home, plunged 
in ignorance, enjoying from their husbands scarcely the 
privileges and immunities accorded to their slaves. 
The Gynaeceum, or that part of the home set apart for 
the occupancy of the women, was really a prison. All 
the glory and praise bestowed upon the civilization and 
progress of ancient Greece, cannot down the criticism as 
to the condition of women. That state of society was 
certainly faulty, where courtisans and prostitutes, were 
honored, while the wives and mothers of the nation were 
slaves. Among the Bomans, the condition of women on 
the average was worse than among the Greeks. The 
Greek character was gentle and humane, while the charac¬ 
ter of the Bomans was stern, indomitable aud cruel. 
Among such a people, where the law made no provision 
for the status of women, it is only reasonable to suppose, 
that their condition was worse, than among the more 
humane Greeks. Among the migratory nations of 
Europe, during the days of Boman ascendency, it is very 


154 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


difficult to determine the condition of women. From 
Tacitus, however, we learn that her condition was propor¬ 
tionally better than was that of the women of Rome. But 
all the information we are able to obtain, only speaks of 
their condition during warfare, or while on the march. 
Then, women accompany the armies, endure the perils 
of the March, and with her presence and exhortations 
urge on the conflict. Doubtless, if learned investiga¬ 
tion could now go back, to the great valleys of the North, 
from whence emigrated the warlike hords of Huns, 
Cimbrians, Goths and Vandals, whose martial presence 
so long afflicted, and finally overthrew the Roman Em¬ 
pire, and with it, ancient civilization, we would doubtless 
find, that the people, who by the light of the Christian 
religion, has in our day totally enfranchised woman, 
did even in their primeval days cherish and respect her 
with some of the chivalry and tenderness, which has 
ever characterized the generous Northland heart. 

Passing from Europe to Asia, even in the countries 
most civilized, the condition of women is even more de¬ 
plorable. I need only mention the harems of the Mo- 
hamedans, the horrible custom of the Chinese in retard¬ 
ing the growth of the feet of their women from child¬ 
hood, as also the wholesale murder of female infants, 
and the custom of caste, and at the death of a husband 
sacrificing his wife or wives, as the case may be, at his 
burial;—all the repulsive stigma of slavery, exercised 
on women, the tenderest, kindest, and most devoted part 
of humanity. Such was her status in the past. An in¬ 
ferior being. A slave. Traces of her servitude still 
survive in our codes of law. The fiction, that husband 
and wife are one, is an instance. Another that the fath¬ 
er is the legal and natural guardian of his children, as 
against their mother. Another making all her contracts 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


155 


during coverture illegal and void. And others,* which 
need not be mentioned. They are all marks of her 
former degradation, the prints of shackles once worn by 
slaves. They will all be soon one of the hideous memo¬ 
ries that do only survive to tell the anti quarian, how 
cruel was mankind in the long, sad centuries of the past. 
Man and woman are intelligent personal beings, endowed 
with intellect and soul, and whatever personal and prop- 
erty rights are guaranteed to one, should be guaranteed 
the other. Such, the present advancing civilization of 
the world will soon bring to fruition. Woman owes to 
Christianity her present enlightened condition. Our 
civilization has borrowed largely from the most distant 
past. But from Christianity it has borrowed the true 
vitalizing principle, and that which differentiates it from 
all others, namely, the equality of man and woman, the 
sacred and beneficient blessings of virtue and purity; in a 
word, the “Christian Home.” The Chistian Home in its 
truest conception is described as a sort of kingdom in 
which the wife and mother is the queen. A beautiful 
and sublime idea. A queen, ruling by love, dowered 
with the sweet affection of a willing servitude, sceptered 
forsooth from right Divine. Many a struggle has Chris¬ 
tianity maintained to defend this grand principle of 
womanhood. Though fierce the struggle, and strong the 
enemy, amid all the gloom and barbarism of the Dark 
Ages, she never consented to woman’s debasement. On 
every other question there was compromise, but on this, 
never. Often by her decision in defence of woman, she 
realized that tragic scene, in the drama of Cymbeline;— 


♦Mention might be made of the common law principle that wages 
for the services of the wife belonged to the husband, which has been 
affirmed by our Supreme court. 81 Mo., 425. The injustice of such 
principles need not be argued. 



156 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


Cymbeline O, Imogen! 

Thou hast lost by this a kingdom. 

Imogen No, my lord, 

I have got two worlds by it. 

‘ ‘Got two worlds. ’ ’ A world of homes, —upon whose 
fireside altars sits sweet Virtue crowned, over arched with 
Joy’s bright rainbow, set in the azure sky of peace,—the 
air laden with the frankincense of kind affection, whose 
suns rise from mornings sweet with dreams, to make 
the day one glad song of kind deeds, and sets in the full 
rhapsod}-of bliss. A world of love, —where the vocal 
air, touched by the enchanting wand of Music’s fairy hand 
breathes the glad harmonies of ecstasy, filled with the 
sanctity of pleasure undefiled,—where succoring hands 
support the drooping form and gentle words console the 
sorrowing heart, —where kisses drink from every weeping 
eye the tear, and pain and grief and fear and doubt 
melt in the golden crucible of Joy;—where the glad days, 
prolonged by cheerful wiles do come and go, but to re¬ 
new again the mystic spell of Love’s unquestioned sway,— 
where youth and age clasp hands in the felicity of sym¬ 
pathy and trust, and flowers adorn alike the robes of 
birth and death,—where hymn baptismal, with its glad¬ 
some strain, sounds not a note of stronger hope than the 
dolorous requiems chanted over the dead which Love’s 
hand lays to rest,—where stalwart manhood, rejoices in 
his strength, and clasps in his embrace alike the forms 
of dimpled youth and palsied age, and to his bosom 
presses close those forms dependent,— against his 
heart they rest,—the “gray locks mingle with the gold” 
as “eyes look love in eyes,” that never knew of false¬ 
hood’s doubt,—but cheer him on to bravely battle in the 
strife of life, as he holds them interlocked in arms that 
will not fail,—where white-winged Peace, and bliss ec¬ 
static reign, and pain and grief serve but to sharp and 




RANDOM FLASHES. 


157 


render more intense the happy hour of joy, —where sin and 
sorrow never dare, and want is ever cheered by plenty,— 
where life sees every joy and in the highest feels and 
knows all pleasure that existence brings,—where for 
every pain is a balm “sweeter than in Giliad;”—all here in 
this sweet world of love, consecrated and sanctified by 
the holy ties of affection and selfsacrifice, radiating like 
the starbeams, the light of Love’s holy dominion, man¬ 
kind may well contemplate its glorious beneficienee, but 
can never learn the debt it owes to this holy shrine of 
virtue and purity:—the Christian Home. 

To maintain and carry out in its primitive idea and 
purity, the ideal Christian Home constitutes the mission 
of the man in love. In accomplishing this his destiny 
is fulfilled. Proud achievement. Grand thought. 
High beats, that heart with throbbing hope, who thus es¬ 
says and wins by the strong right arm of affection the 
holy citadel of love,—the Womanly Woman; for such is 
she, who reigns as queen in the sacred precincts of the 
Christian Home. 

We need not fear, what change in woman, the advanc¬ 
ing progress of our age may bring. She will be thrice 
more lovely as an intellectual being endowed with equal 
rights and privileges than she was in the weak depend¬ 
ence, which was her status in the past. Her highest 
destiny is in the future. Let none resist the holy spirit 
of equality, that is now fast gaining supremacy in our 
day. Cheer.it on. Cavilers may indulge in the satirist’s 
jest over “woman’s rights,” but his dull and senseless 
criticism will be forgotten, his wisdom despised and the 
world will realize and bless the day that ushers into 
being the full equality of all. 

We need not fear that Love will not then, as now, in his 
own peculiar wondrous way, control and guide the aspi- 


158 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


rations of the heart. Above all the wrecks of time and 
change, 

“Love will survive the empire of decay, 

When time is o’er and worlds have passed away, 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 

But that, which warmed it once, can never die.” 

But our two characters,—John and Jennie. Well, 
their story is not long. It has been said that love is 
the great lottery of life. All seek to win the prize. 
But with these two, there was no repetition of the imag¬ 
inary difficulties and heart burnings that we find in fic¬ 
tion, surrounding the lover’s path and making thorny 
that sunlit way. No, they were of the Olden Time. Had 
loved from childhood’s day. That love had known tears, 
not regrets. So when he, guided by the high resolve of 
a nobler destiny, felt the loneliness of the reaction, which 
comes upon us when abandoning old haunts or giving 
up old assoctions, he found an unexpected cheer, in a 
woman s kind and loving smile, and saw a glow of ten¬ 
der pity in the same sweet eye of blue, in which he had 
gazed in the early days, when first they met;—Boyhood 
and Girlhood at school. Pity begets sympathy; sympa¬ 
thy, love; love marriage. And they were wed. The 
happy day, —the gay procession, —the flower decorated al¬ 
tar, the jolly jests of friends, the well wishes of kindred, 
the bridal march up the old church aisle,—the vows,— 
the clasp of loving hands,—the solemn words,—and John 
and Jennie were for life united, for better or for worse, 
to drift in love’s happy bark “Adown the Biver of 
Years.” 

“Adown the River of Years 
We are floating, I and you, 

Ancl Truth is the hand that steers, 

And Hopes are the joyous crew; 

There lies a haven afar. 

Which our vessel daily nears, 

As we sail under sun and star, 

Adown the River of Years.” 




^)onoreb Ctge. 


W’re wearin’ awa’, John, 

Like SDaw wreaths in thaw, John 
W’re wearin’ awa’ 

To the land o’ the leal; 

There’s nae sorrow there, John, 

There's neither cauld nor care, John, 

The day is aye fair 

In the land o’ the leal. 

Lady Carolina Nairne. 







■* 





HONORED AGG. 


Each Age has its own peculiar beauty. Childhood,— 
the happy cheer,—the dimpled smile,—the curls of 
gold,—the dovelike eyes, that drink in wonder deep the 
strange discoveries of life's unknown ways,—the chubby 
form,—the pattering feet,—the artless laugh,—and the 
tender confidence of innocence and love,—all pbrtray 
how fair is beauty’s blush at childhood’s happy tide. 

Youth or Adolescence,—vaunting proud, yet strangely 
dependent,—looking out on life, on unreal grandeur, 
over sunlit fields,—the imaged destiny of the Over-Soul¬ 
stirring the heart to proud and boastful mein,—noting 
not the winged hours of care,—seeing naught but joy in 
life,—regarding of far happier worth the useless toy 
that gives a moment’s pleasure more than hoarded gold or 
vast possessions garnered up by toil;—knowing no past 
and anxious not of future’s care,—but all of life and 
strength that pulses through his sprightly form is in the 
mighty present filled;—seeing in all things beauty;— 
mocking the sparrow’s and the robin’s song;—chasing the 
butterfly with burnished wing;—by running brooks or in 
grassy woods, learning the alphabet of Nature’s book;— 
reading upon the flowery page of Nature’s bloom the law 
by which the sunbeam paints the landscape green,— 
seeking in the Autumn time in lonely groves the drop¬ 
ping nuts—bit by the first November frost, to garner up 
his careless hoard to serve in winter for a fireside feast; 



V 


162 RANDOM FLASHES. 

—through all, is beauty, simple and unfeigned, attesting 
the loveliness of youth’s short fleeting day. 

Manhood;—the Age of reason and of effort strong,— 
when the bold heart, like an Atlas of Old, bears proudly 
on his shoulders broad the big responsibilities which life 
entail;—when with bold front the calm e} T es view life’s 
onerous battles;—counting with care the victories of 
each day;—pushing boldly out to meet the storms 
anticipating danger ere it nears,—lured by Ambition’s 
Siren song;—learning the dignity of honest fame, and be¬ 
tween the Siren’s and the heroic strain seeks hymn of 
honor, integrity and truth,—then Love’s sweet voice 
amid^he conflict sounds; and in the Interregnum of the 
strife, in that short pause, a vow, is made and by his side 
in bridal robes before the nuptial altar stands the one 
whose blush inspired the flame that linked his destiny 
for life with hers;—and then again in the mad strife,— 
buffeting the waves with lusty arm,—bearing the burden 
ot another’s care,—knowing the deep importance of the 
hour;—cheered by the proud consciousness of Duty 
done;—finding in honest toil and industry the art of 
changing sweat drops into gold;—then from the strife 
apart,—a king in the sweet realm of home,—his throne 
the fireside and his scepter love,—clasping in one hand 
the hands of those that heard his birth cry and crooned 
over his sleep when pillowed on their bosoms in his in¬ 
fant days, and in the other, the hands of wife and chil¬ 
dren, linking—there iu love, the union of two ages;—the 
gold and gray,—the dimples and the wrinkles, like the 
oak whose boughs support the withering vine and bloom¬ 
ing tendril;—Ah manhood strong,—thou hero and the 
knight of Love’s domain,—thou too hast beauty most 
sublime, and pregnant with the sunbeam’s glow. 

Old Age, if honored, it too has, beauty fair and true. 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


163 


When the wild dream of Ambition’s luring is hushed and 
life’s form is ripening for the final sickle. Then is realized 
the fruition of noble deeds, of honor prized and charity 
bestowed. Then wisdom speaks in the calm voice of 
sincerity and good will. How gracefully the snow 
gathers about the honest brow of Age;—fading always to 
a fairer lustre, indicating a brighter radiance beyond 
the sunset? Why does the hair whiten with the years? 
White is the emblem of purity;—the stainless robe of 
innocence. As in childhood, at baptismal font, the 
robes of white symbolized the purity and innocence of 
infancy, so Nature following the hidden meaning of the 
rite, covers the venerable temples of age with snowy 
white, thus marking in purity and innocence the same, 
the second childhood as the first, the sunset full as 
gorgeous as the dawn. Not as the poets sing would I 
sing. My harp would not sing of angel fingers playfully 
caressing the golden locks of laughing youth, but rather 
of them laid in reverential dalliance upon the white locks 
of honored age. Age that is unhonored is despair. The 
black shadow of remorse. A wilderness of drear regrets. 
But honored age shows the true sublimity of character. 
It is the quiet reminiscent time, when the hero recounts 
the victories he has won, lays the armor of life’s warfare 
by, and waits with calm and solemn face, the arriving 
of the sunset ere the night. Yet there is beauty then, 
in the kind old eye that lacks its former lustre, in the 
wasted form and wrinkled brow, in the trembling hand 
and solemn voice,^then still is beauty of the Olden Time 
in the weak confiding tenderness of age. 

In this period of life are now our once youthful 
characters John and Jennie. They are now old. Life’s 
filful fever soon will end. All is peace. Joy clips the 
wing of hope to revel in reminiscence. Disappointment 


164 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


has no more the bitter sting. They have no more tears 
for the sorrows life can inflict. But they have had 
their tears. We have known them in childhood and 
heard their nuptial vow. We heard John’s resolution to 
be a man. His honest integrity and devotion to that 
vow, brought him the blessings of all at his nuptial day. 
Then with them both, with joys golden cup filled to the 
brim, as they journeyed on through life, clasped in the 
happy arms of love, along the billowy shores of time the 
waves were laughing in the sunlit sheen of bliss, over 
the ocean of the future a message came to both that 
‘ ‘there was a sail upon the sea’ ’ and with fondest clasp 
and gladdest smile they welcomed the little immigrant to 
their home. And then, while thus, their future big 
with hope, in Love’s high rapsody whiling the weary 
hours of care, lured from Ahe sober quiet ways of life 
by the enlivening prattle of a babe, making their future 
sky starlit with radiant hope—there came a change;— 
white crape was on the door, a white casket was borne 
out by sympathizing friends, and beneath the blue grass 
in the old cemetry, hard by their home, they laid their 
first born to sleep, realizing in all the sadness of 
parental grief: 

“That, that was the end of it all, 

Of their waiting and their pain; 

Only a little funeral pall, 

And empty arms again.” 

Again another hope upon the future sky. Again the 
pangs of birth,—the agony,—the joy,—the cradle song, 
disturbing the solemn quiet of their bereaved home from 
which one flower was plucked;—the laugh of babe,—the 
pattering feet, -the cherub simile, -the locks of gold, -the 
dimpled cheek,—the strange surprise of eyes that look in 
wonder out upon the new and varying changes of nature, 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


165 


flower and field,—the chubby form,—the questioning 
strange from a mind exploring in an undiscovered land, 
all make the humdrum hours go by in happy while, and 
make their hearts already weary with the years, beat 
in the flush of joy, rekindled by a hope. 

But again death comes. Again the fitful fever,—the 
piteous moan,—the blue eye hectic with the fatal stare,— 
the dimpled cheek emaciated,—the laughing lips wide 
parted, and the glad young heart is still. Then again 
the parents tears,—the crape,-the pall,-the grave,—John 
and Jennie, alone. Hope, which once shown as a rain¬ 
bow enstarred with promise i3 hidden by a cloud. They 
are now alone. Doubly bereaved. But the snow is on 
their brows. Nestled close, clasping trembling hands 
in the touching associations of love, purified by sorrow, 
speaking as speaks the broken heart when treading “the 
wine press alone, ’' and yet by faith imagining beyond 
the cloud hope’s rainbow fair, she, the weaker devoted 
still in grief, as the clasping vine around the riven oak, 
spoke in the darkness consolation still:— 

“W’re we arm’ awa,’ John, 

Like snaw wreaths in tha,’ John, 

W’re wearin’ awa,’— 

To the land o’ the leal, 

There’s nae sorrow there, John, 

There’s neither cauid nor care, John, 

The day is aye fair 
In the land o’ the leal. 

Our bonnie bairns are there, John, 

They were baith gdde and fair, John, 

And oh! we grudged them sair 
To the land o’ the leal. 

But sorrows sel wears past, John 
And joys a’ coming fast, John, 

The Joy that’s aye to last 
In the land o’ the leal.” 


166 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


And he too, firm in the consolation of hope, of man¬ 
hood’s honor, bought by effort in weary striving through 
long and tedious years, still yet with earthly j earnings, 
and lingering fondness for that devoted one, whose 
pathway by Love’s guidiance ran beside his own,—oft 
would essay a word of cheer, or an inspiring sentiment, 
when brooding care filled her cup with overflowing grief. 

“Ah, don’t be sorrowful, darling, 

And don’t be sorrowful, pray, 

Taking the year together, my dear, 

There isn’t more night than day. 

’Tis wintry weather, my darling, 

Time’s waves they heavily run, 

But taking the year together, my dear, 

There isn’t more cloud than sun. 

We are old folks, now my darling, 

Our heads are growing gray, 

But taking the year all round, my dear, 

You will always find the May. 

We have had our May, my darling, 

Had our roses long ago, 

And the time of the year has come, my dear, 

For the silent night and snow. 

And God is God, my darling, 

Of night as well as of day, 

And we feel and know that we can go 
Wherever He leads the way. 

Aye, God of the night, my darling, 

Of the night of death so grim, 

The gate that leads out of life, good wife, 

Is the gate that leads to him.” 

Thus Love’s sweet voice, speaks in its intense fervency 
near the sunset as at Dawn. Love, the Palladium of hum¬ 
an society, the star of civilization and the guardian angel 
of home. Strongest and cheeriest in hour of gloom. It 
laughs at sorrow and bids defiance to all the wrecks 
of life. It builds happiness in tears, and spreads the 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


167 


barren wastes of pain with the fragrant Accacia bloom of 
bliss. Like the Alpine rose, it blooms sweetest amidst 
the most frigid asperities of life. It clings fonder to 
the broken spar, than to the full flowing sail. Like the 
green Ivy, it clings with fonder clasp, and weaves more 
dense its tendrils, as time tears deeper rents in the mould¬ 
ering wall. So still, strong in age, it binds its links of 
gold about the tottering forms, and in the kind lack lus¬ 
trous eyes beams glorious still, fair as the Sun at autumn 
evening robed for his rest upon his golden couch of amber 
behind the gates of West. 

Love is the inspiration of righteousness and who fol¬ 
lows its divine light will wear the golden crown of Hon¬ 
ored Age. Honored Age only comes to him who has 
led a worthy and upright life. It comes only to him 
whose integrity was stainless, who has stood the test of 
life’s trials and temptations, who has past all dangers, 
and comes from the ordeal, pure and unsullied, in the 
proud honesty of conscientious manhood. It comes to 
him, whcse heart was tender, whose hand was free, who 
helped the helpless, and who in the benignity of a gen¬ 
erous soul, was in all things, though not perfect, always 
kind. Kind to a fault;—never censuring the imperfec¬ 
tions and short comings of his fellowman, but ever with 
eyes, gazing through the lens of charity, sees good, 
where others see, but evil. Kind in his home;—worship¬ 
ing his household gods by his fireside altar. Kind in 
business,—meeting with the same friendly face, misfor¬ 
tune or success. Kind in his social relations, esteeming 
fellowship, as the crown of society, and its merry mak¬ 
ing as a human duty. Such qualities bring honored 
age, all the fruit and offspring of Love. Honored not 
perhaps in the tinsel of fame, or in the plaudits of the 
multitude, but in the hearts of his friends and neighbors, 


168 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


in the love of his wife and children, and in the approval 
of his God. How all love the Old Man who commands 
the respect of all? Who has led an upright life, and is 
now nearing the river. Whose kindly words are ever 
given to encourage the doubting heart of youth, too bold 
yet too fearful, to meet the stern difficulties of life. The 
painter surrounds the brow of his saiut with an aureole 
of light. Is that crown a superstition? Or has his 
inspired soul looked deeper into what adorns the silent 
heart, whose life has been spent in the service of human - 
ity, and sees there shining in rainbow glory, the sem¬ 
blance of the “crown awaiting on the other shore?” It 
needs not the painter’s genius, nor the eye of Faith, to 
see such aureole in the silvery locks adorning the tem¬ 
ples of Honored Age. 

In Old Age the seriousness of life, no longer fore¬ 
shadow gloom. The sublime injunctions of Philosophy 
guided by Reason, assert their sway. The Age of doubt 
is past. That period belongs to manhood’s day. Old 
age, leans like a pilgrim, on the staff of Faith. Our two 
characters, John and Jennie, have passed at last through 
the valley of Doubt, and now on the brink of the river at 
life’s sunset stand on the solid rock of Faith. Rut with 
John the passage hither, was long, doubtful aud dubious. 
The cloud of skepticism overshadowed his path at every 
turn. That strong and abiding Faith, which some pos¬ 
sess, by which they see a Jacob’s ladder reaching be}'ond* 
the stars, and crossing the vast chasm betwixt Time and 
Eternity was never his. It is true he was an earnest 
seeker, and envied others that faith. It was “a boon 
devoutly to be wished. ” That faith which regards life 
as a place of exile, and the grave as the couch of rest,— 
Death, the mysterious sentry, who opens to all the doors 
of everlasting joy,—that sings the consoling song: — 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


169 


“The heart is Earth’s exile, the soul is Heaven’s.” 

No wonder the martyrs have smiled in the midst of 
tortures, and the faithful Aztec, stretched on burning 
coals, exclaims:—“Am I reposing on a bed of flowers?” 
But he, never so gazed on imagined pathways, passed 
the stars. He could not look, except through cloud and 
mist, and life to him seemed a land surrounded by sea, 
above whose waves were ‘ ‘clouds and thick darknessOn 
this land is light for day. What is beyond? Darkness and 
Night, Night and Darknes. Not so. A doubt rifts the 
gloom, and Hope, like Ariel, comes through on a sunbeam. 
Upon that sunbeam Faith strives, and for many, maps 
out the New Jerusalem with its walls of Jasper, and 
streets of the purest gold. 

But he was too critical to build so proudly. He 
wasted months and years in study; and burned the mid¬ 
night oil in wandering through the theorems of many 
creeds, and had knelt at many shrines, but the great 
question was still with him:— 

Is there above the stars 
Another land, 

Free from the grief and jars 
We here withstand, 

Where the sunset sheen of gold 
Borrows her gladsome hue 
And those burning heart-hopes, crushed and old, 

Again are new ? 

Is there “in Eternity, a land where the rainbow never 
fades, ’ ’ and where the great and good are gathered to their 
reward “to learn the secrets God keeps on the other 
shore?” 

He asked Love:—Is it so? But she only bent weep¬ 
ing over a pall, kissed the parted lips, folded the cere¬ 
ments and flung a rose on a grave moistened by her 
tears. 


170 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


He asked Friendship:—Is it so? And she took him 
out into the great world. There was a heart broken, 
she banished its grief. There was one who hungered and 
thirsted and she gave him to eat and drink. There was 
one naked, and she clothed him. There were lips parch¬ 
ed with fever, and brows aching, that at the touch of 
her hand were healed. She gave homes to the homeless, 
and rest to the weary. She gathered about the couch of 
death and softened the mourner’s grief. But when she 
looked into the opened grave, as he pressed her for an 
answer, she closed her lips, arched the mound and went 
away. 

He asked History:—Is it so? And she spread in pano¬ 
rama all the mighty past before him. He saw men 
building pyramids, and their foundations laid in desert 
sands, grew till their summits reached the clouds. He 
saw the tower of Babel, the walls of Baalbec, the gar¬ 
dens of Babylon, the treasures of Croesus, the conquests 
of Alexander and the majesty of Home. Back near the 
beginning, he heard the harp of Jubal sounding through 
the streets of that first city, laid out aTid builded by one 
whose hand was stained with a brother’s blood. The 
rise and fall of Empires, kingdoms, principalities and 
nations passed before him. He saw the beginning of 
events, when the young centuries chronicled the pygmy 
endeavors of the primeval man. He heard the songs of 
Homer and the verses of Virgil. There were Kings, 
Princes, Nobles, Serfs, Poets, Orators, Scholars, States' 
men, Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, Sculptors and 
Painters whose words and works, shining out in the lus¬ 
tre of genius bestowed the wreath of immortality. He 
saw the beginning of creeds, and stood on Olympus as 
the gods assembled, and at their feet he learned the 
weird rubrics of Grecian and Boman mythology. He 


RANDOM PLASHES. 


171 


learned of the Abriman and Ormuzd of Zoroaster and 
markedthe devotion of the Iranian priest before his ever 
lastingfires. The story of the twelve fishermen was told, 
and then the rise of Islam passed before his view. Then 
came the struggle for supremacy between the Cross and 
the Crescent, the bleeding fields, the bravery and cour¬ 
age of fanaticism, against the trained discipline of the 
Saracens. And thousands of other scenes of war and 
conquest passed in review before him, but when he 
pressed her to tell him the story of the beyond, she took 
him through.the catecombs and cemeteries, where the Ivy 
and crumbling marble hold communion, and pointing to 
the time blurred cenotaphs, she disappeared. 

He asked Science:—-Is it so? And she constructed her 
charts, angles, signs and lenses to make true demonstra¬ 
tion. In her glittering prism, she displayed the spectro¬ 
scope of the past. She unraveled myths, and showed 
that the living thoughts of to-day are the dead supersti¬ 
tions of to-morrow. She touched the electric spark, and 
he conversed with others thousands of miles away. She 
gave him a formula, and he measured the sun, and com¬ 
puted the distance to the stars. He weighed the planets 
in her scales, and explained^their motions and changes. 
With steam he-annihilated distance, and in the rocks 
and strata of the Earth, he read the true history of 
Creation. But when he pressed her to answer the great 
question,'is life be t yond, she hesitated, but finally con¬ 
descended to take him into the still, dark vaults of the 
tomb, where on her discecting table, she analyzed with 
minute accuracy, theZcomponent.parts and primary ele¬ 
ments, of the form in death dissolving and returning to 
its parent clay. But when he still pressed her further 
for answer, she pointed to the dead rose, and the bud 


172 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


again putting forth leaf, and lest he should further 
question, she went away. 

He asked Poetry:—Is it so? And she tuned her wild 
harp, and there was music. He stood with Homer on 
Hion’s battle towers, and wandered with Ulysses and 
heard the Siren’s song. Virgil’s lay touched his ear, and 
he heard again the story of Aeneas, and of his wander¬ 
ings, ere he laid the corner stone of Eternal Rome. In 
the groves of Banzi by the shores of “the sounding Au- 
fidus” he conversed with Horace, who first taught the 
Latins lyric verse. Back over the Tyrian waves, beyond 
the Tigress, he heard the songs of David, the wrapt 
Isaiah, the sad lament of Jeremiah, and the fervent and 
steadfast faith as sung in the melody of Job. Then 
passed in panorama Tasso, Petrarch, Dante, Milton, 
Schiller, Shakespeare, Goethe, Goldsmith, Heine and 
Moore. In their melody, he saw portrayed the Paradise 
and Inferneo of Dante, the despicable Mephistopholes, 
of Goethe, the Grand Satin of Milton, the tragic heroes 
Schiller and Shakspeare, the pathos and passion of 
Heine, Tasso and Patrarch, blending with the sweet 
tender sentiments of Goldsmith and Moore. He heard, 
in many of these strains, of spirits,—love inspired, re¬ 
turning and speaking with friends here, in warning or 
in consolation, but when from the music he sought 
to ascertain a date, or fix the certainty of the event, it 
vanished as a cloud, and all the facts became myths and 
imagries. And when he asked her whence her music, 
or if her strains reached beyond the valley of the Shad¬ 
ow, or found ears there listening to the sweetness of the 
notes, she burst forth in sad requiems, and like the harp 
of Orpheus, made all nature weep with her lamentations. 
But he, still questioning, the Inspired Strain,—trusting 
and yet doubting, became silent and disappeared. 



RANDOM FLASHES. 


173 


He asked Philosophy:—Is it so? And she at once as¬ 
sumed the logicians art, and with facts and sequences 
proceeded to answer in her lofty style of Argumenta¬ 
tion. First her premises were given, material essence 
explained, the entity of existence declared, the realm of 
mind and matter reviewed, then at her invitation he 
stepped into the domain of Ethics. She showed him that 
in the regions of the mind,—that wondrous land of mys¬ 
tery and doubt, there are ‘ ‘temples not made with 
hands.” Temples arched in beauty whose chevroned 
walls portra}^ the shining glories of the sculptor’s chisel 
and whose altars are adorned with the fair chaplets of 
roses, gathered frpm flowery banks of memory old. 
That acts and incidents, long past, still live shelved up¬ 
on the niches of these temples, where memory acts as the 
custodian to call them up, and bring them again to life. 
That the verdure reaped by the sickle or nipped by the 
frosts, becomes again green. That in the breast there 
is a secret longing and an inborn consciousness of immor- 
tality. That inspired by this— 

“ The soul secure in its existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger and defys its point.” 

Then exulting over this argument, which is accepted 
as strongest demonstration, exclaims: — 

“The stars shall fade away, the Sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years, 

But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 

Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 

'The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.” 

But Doubt still questions, and Reason, skeptic still, 
shows that bold assumption to be but a child of super¬ 
stition, born of dreams. She then led him out in Na¬ 
ture. She showed him the attribures of the soul, and the 
instincts of humanity,—love and hope. He tried to fol- 


174 


RANDOM FLASHES. 


low them skyward, but every flight found ending in a 
grave. Every genius, every hero, every aspiration of 
heart or soul, found end of all its efforts in a grave. 
And when he asked Philosophy, what is beyond that 
dark valley, her contemplations became perplexed, her 
reasoning dubious, and when he must know to a certain¬ 
ty, she became dogmatic in her assumptions, and failing 
still to convince, retired. 

He then asked Religion:—Is it so? And she gathered 
all humanity under the overshadowing wings of Faith. 
She rebuked Reason for his skepticism, and called on 
Love and Hope to awaken in his heart a spark of the 
saving Faith that never doubts, but clings and trusts. 
Having hushed the sting of doubt’s dark fear by her 
confiding tenderness, she took him in spirit to One, who 
walked the seas of Gallilee of old, who seemed to be in 
the world only for the good he could do,—who healed 
the sick—gave sight to the blind—comforted the sorrow¬ 
ful and raised the dead to life;—whose voice the winds 
obeyed and.the silent air made vocal said:—‘‘This is my 

beloved son,”—who in sympathy for all men lived,_who 

stated that his mission was, when “the spirit of the 
Lord was upon him, he was annointed to preach the 
gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearted and to 
set the captives free; who died still loving all mankind, 
though suffering most at their hands,—who told them that 
his footsteps led through the dark valley to a better 
land beyond,—prepared for all,—a lasting andan eternal 
abiding place in the “many mansioned” home:—that 
there was there no tears or sorrow and that he was the 
way. And then Religion took him to a grave, and 
from its darkness, pointed to the light beyond, and 
showed him “the great white throne, ” the New Jerusalem, 
where in the full light of God, on the sheen lit hills of 



BANDOM FLASHES. 


175 


eternity, peace spread her white wings, and bid the 
weary wanderer rest among the green valleys of Paradise, 
in G-od’s everlasting love. Standing by that grave, all 
horror vanished, and all that it seemed, was the gate 
which opened to the weary heart sweet rest. The 
pleasure of the thought made his heart overflowing 
speak:— 

‘Beyond the parting and the meeting 
I shall be soon, 

Beyond the farewells and the greeting 

Beyond the pulse forever beating 
I shall be soon.” 

“Beyond the past-chain and the fever, 

1 shall be soon, 

Beyond the rock waste and the river, 

Beyond the ever and the never, 

I shaM be soon.” 

So thus, when after years of fruitless and vain re¬ 
search, his mind like “the caged eagle beating his 
wings against the prison bars,” returned it last like the 
wearried dove to the ark of Faith; knowing not a reason 
for seeking such haven, but feeling as by instinct that 
there alone, of all, was the pathway leading “beyond 
the stars.” As age whitens deeper, the once raven 
locks upon his temples, he, with his consort, who never 
made such fruitless wanderings through skepticism and 
doubt, journeys on to meet life’s end, thinking that 
through all the night will shine Hope’s star. Reason 
and Doubt comes back again, and oft would woo him 
to once more return, and wander through their strange 
and dubious climes, but clinging firmly with his aged 
hands to a pillar of the temple of the unshaken Faith, 
he bids them speak, what further promise can they give 
of immortality beyond the grave. Thus baffled, Doubt and 
Reason speaks no more, and trusting firmly in Faith’s 


176 


RANDOM FLASHES. 




promise bright, they both await Death’s coming as a 
messenger of joy. Thus ends life’s journey in honored 
age. Then i3 the proud worth of honor and integrity 
made known. They both have earned that glorious 
coronal, and calm and serene at life’s sombre evening, 
amid all its asperities and disappointments they speak 
each other their mutual consolations: 

“Let us live, let us hope, let us trust, 

For we live, it is life and we must; 

Let us dream there’s a land where the soul has command. 

And the heart cannot moulder to dust.” * 


*George W. Warder. 

\ 












PRESS COMMENTS. 


L. A. Martin possesses the true poetical genius of 
a great author. — Chillicothe Tribune. 

His writings have given him a prominent place 
among the best writers of Missouri. — Chillicothe Consti¬ 
tution, 

Mr. Martin writes about pretty women, Nature’s 
pictures and sentiments of the heart.— Brookfield Argus. 

L. A. Martin, who bears the proud name of Chilli- 
cothes Poet Laureate is rapidly acquiring fame in the 
field of Books. — Chillicothe Mail and Star. 

Mr. Martin and the writer, for a number of years 
have been firm friends, and during the time we have had 
occasion to note the marked literary ability he pos¬ 
sesses.— Dawn Clipper . 






































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